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| <tr><td><p style="text-align:center">Download as <a href="shorts/PeterWatts_Blindsight.pdf">PDF</a>, zipped <a href="shorts/Blindsight.zip">HTML</a>, <a href="http://www.realityloop.com/">Brian Gilbert</a>'s <a href="shorts/Blindsight.pdb">Mobipocket mix</a> or <a href="shorts/Blindsight.prc">John Joseph Adams</a>'s (with thanks to both), <a href="http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Blindsight-v1.01-formatted-by-Ellen-Herzfeld.epub">Ellen Herzfeld's e-pub edition</a> (more thanks!), or just read online (below)<br><br> |
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| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align:center"> |
| <FONT SIZE=5 STYLE="font-size: 20pt">Blindsight</FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| <FONT SIZE=4 STYLE="font-size: 16pt">Peter Watts</FONT><br><br> |
|
|
|
|
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <br><br>For Lisa<BR><br> |
| If we're not in pain, we're not alive. |
| <br><br></P> |
| <DIV ID="Section1" DIR="LTR"> |
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| <BR> |
| </P> |
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| <P LANG="" STYLE="margin-left: 0.17in; font-weight: medium"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Prologue">Prologue</a></P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Theseus">Theseus</a></P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Rorschach">Rorschach</a></P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Charybdis">Charybdis</a></P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Acknowledgments">Acknowledgments</a></P> |
| <P LANG="" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a href="#Notes">Notes and References</a></P> |
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| <a href="#CC">Creative Commons Licensing Information</a></P> |
| </DIV> |
| <DIV ID="Section2" DIR="LTR"> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 200%"> |
| </P> |
| </DIV> |
|
|
| <br><br><hr width="100%" color="#00000"><br><br><br> |
|
|
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"This |
| is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of |
| imagining what is, in fact, real."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Philip |
| Gourevitch</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"You |
| will die like a dog for no good reason."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Ernest |
| Hemingway</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <br><br><br><a name="Prologue"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a> |
|
|
|
|
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Prologue</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Try |
| to touch the past. Try to deal with the past. It's not real. It's |
| just a dream."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Ted |
| Bundy</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It didn't start out here. Not with the scramblers or <I>Rorschach</I>, |
| not with Big Ben or <I>Theseus</I> or the vampires. Most people |
| would say it started with the Fireflies, but they'd be wrong. It |
| <I>ended</I> with all those things.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For me, it began with Robert Paglino. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At the age of eight, he was my best and only friend. We were fellow |
| outcasts, bound by complementary misfortune. Mine was developmental. |
| His was genetic: an uncontrolled genotype that left him predisposed |
| to nearsightedness, acne, and (as it later turned out) a |
| susceptibility to narcotics. His parents had never had him |
| optimized. Those few TwenCen relics who still believed in God also |
| held that one shouldn't try to improve upon His handiwork. So |
| although both of us <I>could</I> have been repaired, only one of us |
| <I>had</I> been. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I arrived at the playground to find Pag the center of attention for |
| some half-dozen kids, those lucky few in front punching him in the |
| head, the others making do with taunts of <I>mongrel</I> and <I>polly</I> |
| while waiting their turn. I watched him raise his arms, almost |
| hesitantly, to ward off the worst of the blows. I could see into his |
| head better than I could see into my own; he was scared that his |
| attackers might think those hands were coming up to hit <I>back</I>, |
| that they'd read it as an act of defiance and hurt him even more. |
| Even then, at the tender age of eight and with half my mind gone, I |
| was becoming a superlative observer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I didn't know what to do.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I hadn't seen much of Pag lately. I was pretty sure he'd been |
| avoiding me. Still, when your best friend's in trouble you help out, |
| right? Even if the odds are impossible—and how many |
| eight-year-olds would go up against six bigger kids for a sandbox |
| buddy?—at least you call for backup. Flag a sentry. |
| <I>Something</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I just stood there. I didn't even especially <I>want</I> to help |
| him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That didn't make sense. Even if he hadn't been my best friend, I |
| should at least have empathized. I'd suffered less than Pag in the |
| way of overt violence; my seizures tended to keep the other kids at a |
| distance, scared <I>them</I> even as they incapacitated <I>me</I>. |
| Still. I was no stranger to the taunts and insults, or the foot that |
| appears from nowhere to trip you up en route from A to B. I knew how |
| that felt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Or I had, once.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But that part of me had been cut out along with the bad wiring. I |
| was still working up the algorithms to get it back, still learning by |
| observation. Pack animals always tear apart the weaklings in their |
| midst. Every child knows that much instinctively. Maybe I should |
| just let that process unfold, maybe I shouldn't try to mess with |
| nature. Then again, Pag's parents hadn't messed with nature, and |
| look what it got them: a son curled up in the dirt while a bunch of |
| engineered superboys kicked in his ribs.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In the end, propaganda worked where empathy failed. Back then I |
| didn't so much think as observe, didn't deduce so much as |
| <I>remember</I>—and what I remembered was a thousand |
| inspirational stories lauding anyone who ever stuck up for the |
| underdog. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I picked up a rock the size of my fist and hit two of Pag's |
| assailants across the backs of their heads before anyone even knew I |
| was in the game.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A third, turning to face the new threat, took a blow to the face that |
| audibly crunched the bones of his cheek. I remember wondering why I |
| didn't take any satisfaction from that sound, why it meant nothing |
| beyond the fact I had one less opponent to worry about.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The rest of them ran at the sight of blood. One of the braver |
| promised me I was dead, shouted "<I>Fucking zombie!</I>" |
| over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Three decades it took, to see the irony in that remark.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Two of the enemy twitched at my feet. I kicked one in the head until |
| it stopped moving, turned to the other. Something grabbed my arm and |
| I swung without thinking, without <I>looking</I> until Pag yelped and |
| ducked out of reach.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh," I said. "Sorry."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One thing lay motionless. The other moaned and held its head and |
| curled up in a ball.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh<I> shit</I>," Pag panted. Blood coursed unheeded from |
| his nose and splattered down his shirt. His cheek was turning blue |
| and yellow. "Oh<I> shit </I>oh shit oh <I>shit...</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought of something to say. "You all right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh <I>shit</I>, you—I mean, you <I>never</I>..." He |
| wiped his mouth. Blood smeared the back of his hand. "Oh <I>man</I> |
| are we in trouble."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They started it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, but you—I mean, <I>look</I> at them!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The moaning thing was crawling away on all fours. I wondered how |
| long it would be before it found reinforcements. I wondered if I |
| should kill it before then.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You'da <I>never</I> done that before," Pag said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Before the operation, he meant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I actually did feel something then—faint, distant, but |
| unmistakable. I felt angry. "They <I>started</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag backed away, eyes wide. "What are you <I>doing</I>? Put |
| that <I>down</I>!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd raised my fists. I didn't remember doing that. I unclenched |
| them. It took a while. I had to look at my hands very hard for a |
| long, long time.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The rock dropped to the ground, blood-slick and glistening. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I was trying to help." I didn't understand why he |
| couldn't <I>see </I>that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're, you're not the <I>same</I>," Pag said from a safe |
| distance. "You're not even <I>Siri</I> any more."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I am too. Don't be a fuckwad."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>They cut out your brain</I>!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only half. For the ep—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I <I>know</I> for the epilepsy! You think I don't know? But |
| you were <I>in</I> that half—or, like, <I>part</I> of you |
| was..." He struggled with the words, with the concept behind |
| them. "And now you're <I>different</I>. It's like, your mom |
| and dad <I>murdered</I> you—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My mom and dad," I said, suddenly quiet, "saved my |
| life. I would have <I>died</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think you <I>did</I> die," said my best and only friend. |
| "I think <I>Siri</I> died, they scooped him out and threw him |
| away and you're some whole other kid that just, just <I>grew back</I> |
| out of what was left. You're not the <I>same</I>. Ever since. |
| You're not the <I>same</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I still don't know if Pag really knew what he was saying. Maybe his |
| mother had just pulled the plug on whatever game he'd been wired into |
| for the previous eighteen hours, forced him outside for some fresh |
| air. Maybe, after fighting pod people in gamespace, he couldn't help |
| but see them everywhere. Maybe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But you could make a case for what he said. I do remember Helen |
| telling me (and <I>telling</I> me) how difficult it was to adjust. |
| <I>Like you had a whole new personality</I>, she said, and why not? |
| There's a reason they call it <I>radical</I> hemispherectomy: half |
| the brain thrown out with yesterday's krill, the remaining half |
| press-ganged into double duty. Think of all the rewiring that one |
| lonely hemisphere must have struggled with as it tried to take up the |
| slack. It turned out okay, obviously. The brain's a very flexible |
| piece of meat; it took some doing, but it adapted. <I>I</I> adapted. |
| Still. Think of all that must have been squeezed out, deformed, |
| <I>reshaped</I> by the time the renovations were through. You could |
| argue that I'm a different person than the one who used to occupy |
| this body.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grownups showed up eventually, of course. Medicine was bestowed, |
| ambulances called. Parents were outraged, diplomatic volleys |
| exchanged, but it's tough to drum up neighborhood outrage on behalf |
| of your injured baby when playground surveillance from three angles |
| shows the little darling—and five of his buddies— kicking |
| in the ribs of a disabled boy. My mother, for her part, recycled |
| the usual complaints about problem children and absentee fathers—Dad |
| was off again in some other hemisphere—but the dust settled |
| pretty quickly. Pag and I even stayed friends, after a short hiatus |
| that reminded us both of the limited social prospects open to |
| schoolyard rejects who don't stick together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I survived that and a million other childhood experiences. I grew |
| up and I got along. I learned to fit in. I observed, recorded, |
| derived the algorithms and mimicked appropriate behaviors. Not much |
| of it was—heartfelt, I guess the word is. I had friends and |
| enemies, like everyone else. I chose them by running through |
| checklists of behaviors and circumstances compiled from years of |
| observation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I may have grown up distant but I grew up <I>objective</I>, and I |
| have Robert Paglino to thank for that. His seminal observation set |
| everything in motion. It led me into Synthesis, fated me to our |
| disastrous encounter with the Scramblers, spared me the worse fate |
| befalling Earth. Or the better one, I suppose, depending on your |
| point of view. Point of view <I>matters</I>: I see that now, blind, |
| talking to myself, trapped in a coffin falling past the edge of the |
| solar system. I see it for the first time since some beaten bloody |
| friend on a childhood battlefield convinced me to throw my own point |
| of view away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He may have been wrong. <I>I</I> may have been. But that, that |
| <I>distance</I>—that chronic sense of being an alien among your |
| own kind—it's not entirely a bad thing. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It came in especially handy when the real aliens came calling.</P> |
| <br><br><br><a name="Theseus"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a><br><br><br> |
| <DIV ID="Section9" DIR="LTR"> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Theseus</H2> |
| </DIV> |
| <br><br><br> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Blood |
| makes noise." —Susanne Vega</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you are Siri Keeton:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a |
| record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty |
| days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and |
| leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months |
| on standby. The body <I>inflates</I> in painful increments: blood |
| vessels dilate; flesh peels apart from flesh; ribs crack in your ears |
| with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through |
| disuse. You're a stick-man, frozen in some perverse <I>rigor vitae</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You'd scream if you had the breath.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was <I>normal</I> |
| for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. |
| They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if |
| that absurd aversion to right-angles hadn't done them in at the dawn |
| of civilization. Maybe they still can. They're back now, after all— |
| raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched |
| together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of |
| sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this |
| very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it |
| too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. |
| Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The pain begins, just slightly, to recede. You fire up your inlays |
| and access your own vitals: it'll be long minutes before your body |
| responds fully to motor commands, hours before it stops hurting. |
| The pain's an unavoidable side effect. That's just what happens when |
| you splice vampire subroutines into Human code. You asked about |
| painkillers once, but nerve blocks of any kind <I>compromise |
| metabolic reactivation</I>. Suck it up, soldier.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You wonder if this was how it felt for Chelsea, before the end. But |
| that evokes a whole other kind of pain, so you block it out and |
| concentrate on the life pushing its way back into your extremities. |
| Suffering in silence, you check the logs for fresh telemetry.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You think: <I>That can't be right</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because if it is, you're in the wrong part of the universe. You're |
| not in the Kuiper Belt where you belong: you're high above the |
| ecliptic and deep into the Oort, the realm of long-period comets that |
| only grace the sun every million years or so. You've gone |
| <I>interstellar</I>, which means (you bring up the system clock) |
| you've been undead for eighteen hundred days.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You've overslept by almost five years.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The lid of your coffin slides away. Your own cadaverous body |
| reflects from the mirrored bulkhead opposite, a desiccated lungfish |
| waiting for the rains. Bladders of isotonic saline cling to its |
| limbs like engorged antiparasites, like the opposite of leeches. You |
| remember the needles going in just before you shut down, way back |
| when your veins were more than dry twisted filaments of beef jerky.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's reflection stares back from his own pod to your immediate |
| right. His face is as bloodless and skeletal as yours. His wide |
| sunken eyes jiggle in their sockets as he reacquires his own links, |
| sensory interfaces so massive that your own off-the-shelf inlays |
| amount to shadow-puppetry in comparison.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You hear coughing and the rustling of limbs just past line-of-sight, |
| catch glimpses of reflected motion where the others stir at the edge |
| of vision.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wha—" Your voice is barely more than a hoarse |
| whisper. "…happ…?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel works his jaw. Bone cracks audibly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "…Sssuckered," he hisses.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You haven't even met the aliens yet, and already they're running |
| rings around you.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So we dragged ourselves back from the dead: five part-time cadavers, |
| naked, emaciated, barely able to move even in zero gee. We emerged |
| from our coffins like premature moths ripped from their cocoons, |
| still half-grub. We were alone and off course and utterly helpless, |
| and it took a conscious effort to remember: they would never have |
| risked our lives if we hadn't been essential.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Morning, commissar." Isaac Szpindel reached one |
| trembling, insensate hand for the feedback gloves at the base of his |
| pod. Just past him, Susan James was curled into a loose fetal ball, |
| murmuring to herselves. Only Amanda Bates, already dressed and |
| cycling through a sequence of bone-cracking isometrics, possessed |
| anything approaching mobility. Every now and then she tried bouncing |
| a rubber ball off the bulkhead; but not even she was up to catching |
| it on the rebound yet.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The journey had melted us down to a common archetype. James' round |
| cheeks and hips, Szpindel's high forehead and lumpy, lanky |
| chassis—even the enhanced carboplatinum brick shit-house that |
| Bates used for a body— all had shriveled to the same desiccated |
| collection of sticks and bones. Even our hair seemed to have become |
| strangely discolored during the voyage, although I knew that was |
| impossible. More likely it was just filtering the pallor of the skin |
| beneath. Still. The pre-dead James had been dirty blond, Szpindel's |
| hair had been almost dark enough to call <I>black</I>— but the |
| stuff floating from their scalps looked the same dull kelpy brown to |
| me now. Bates kept her head shaved, but even her eyebrows weren't as |
| rusty as I remembered them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We'd revert to our old selves soon enough. Just add water. For now, |
| though, the old slur was freshly relevant: the Undead really did all |
| look the same, if you didn't know how to look.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If you did, of course—if you forgot appearance and watched for |
| motion, ignored meat and studied <I>topology</I>—you'd never |
| mistake one for another. Every facial tic was a data point, every |
| conversational pause spoke volumes more than the words to either |
| side. I could see James' personae shatter and coalesce in the |
| flutter of an eyelash. Szpindel's unspoken distrust of Amanda Bates |
| shouted from the corner of his smile. Every twitch of the phenotype |
| cried aloud to anyone who knew the language.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Where's—" James croaked, coughed, waved one spindly |
| arm at Sarasti's empty coffin gaping at the end of the row. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's lips cracked in a small rictus. "Gone back to Fab, |
| eh? Getting the ship to build some dirt to lie on."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably communing with the Captain." Bates breathed |
| louder than she spoke, a dry rustle from pipes still getting |
| reacquainted with the idea of respiration. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James again: "Could do that up here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Could take a dump up here, too," Szpindel rasped. "Some |
| things you do by yourself, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And some things you kept <I>to</I> yourself. Not many baselines |
| felt comfortable locking stares with a vampire—Sarasti, ever |
| courteous, tended to avoid eye contact for exactly that reason—but |
| there were other surfaces to his topology, just as mammalian and just |
| as readable. If he had withdrawn from public view, maybe I was the |
| reason. Maybe he was keeping secrets.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| After all, <I>Theseus</I> damn well was. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She'd taken us a good fifteen AUs towards our destination before |
| something scared her off course. Then she'd skidded north like a |
| startled cat and started climbing: a wild high three-gee burn off |
| the ecliptic, thirteen hundred tonnes of momentum bucking against |
| Newton's First. She'd emptied her Penn tanks, bled dry her substrate |
| mass, squandered a hundred forty days' of fuel in hours. Then a long |
| cold coast through the abyss, years of stingy accounting, the thrust |
| of every antiproton weighed against the drag of sieving it from the |
| void. Teleportation isn't magic: the Icarus stream couldn't send us |
| the actual antimatter it made, only the quantum specs. <I>Theseus</I> |
| had to filterfeed the raw material from space, one ion at a time. |
| For long dark years she'd made do on pure inertia, hoarding every |
| swallowed atom. Then a flip; ionizing lasers strafing the space |
| ahead; a ramscoop thrown wide in a hard brake. The weight of a |
| trillion trillion protons slowed<I> </I>her down and refilled her gut |
| and flattened us all over again. <I>Theseus</I> had burned |
| relentless until almost the moment of our resurrection.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was easy enough to retrace those steps; our course was there in |
| ConSensus for anyone to see. Exactly why the ship had blazed that |
| trail was another matter. Doubtless it would all come out during the |
| post-rez briefing. We were hardly the first vessel to travel under |
| the cloak of <I>sealed orders</I>, and if there'd been a pressing |
| need to know by now we'd have known by now. Still, I wondered who |
| had locked out the Comm logs. Mission Control, maybe. Or Sarasti. |
| Or <I>Theseus</I> herself, for that matter. It was easy to forget |
| the Quantical AI at the heart of our ship. It stayed so discreetly |
| in the background, nurtured and carried us and permeated our |
| existence like an unobtrusive God; but like God, it never took your |
| calls.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti was the official intermediary. When the ship did speak, it |
| spoke to him— and Sarasti called it <I>Captain</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So did we all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd given us four hours to come back. It took more than three just |
| to get me out of the crypt. By then my brain was at least firing on |
| most of its synapses, although my body—still sucking fluids |
| like a thirsty sponge— continued to ache with every movement. |
| I swapped out drained electrolyte bags for fresh ones and headed aft. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fifteen minutes to spin-up. Fifty to the post-resurrection briefing. |
| Just enough time for those who preferred gravity-bound sleep to haul |
| their personal effects into the drum and stake out their allotted 4.4 |
| square meters of floor space.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Gravity—or any centripetal facsimile thereof—did not |
| appeal to me. I set up my own tent in zero-gee and as far to stern |
| as possible, nuzzling the forward wall of the starboard shuttle tube. |
| The tent inflated like an abscess on <I>Theseus'</I> spine, a little |
| climate-controlled bubble of atmosphere in the dark cavernous vacuum |
| beneath the ship's carapace. My own effects were minimal; it took |
| all of thirty seconds to stick them to the wall, and another thirty |
| to program the tent's environment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Afterwards I went for a hike. After five years, I needed the |
| exercise.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Stern was closest, so I started there: at the shielding that |
| separated payload from propulsion. A single sealed hatch blistered |
| the aft bulkhead dead center. Behind it, a service tunnel wormed |
| back through machinery best left untouched by human hands. The fat |
| superconducting torus of the ramscoop ring; the antennae fan behind |
| it, unwound now into an indestructible soap-bubble big enough to |
| shroud a city, its face turned sunward to catch the faint quantum |
| sparkle of the Icarus antimatter stream. More shielding behind that; |
| then the telematter reactor, where raw hydrogen and refined |
| information conjured fire three hundred times hotter than the sun's. |
| I knew the incantations, of course—antimatter cracking and |
| deconstruction, the teleportation of quantum serial numbers—but |
| it was still magic to me, how we'd come so far so fast. It would |
| have been magic to anyone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except Sarasti, maybe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Around me, the same magic worked at cooler temperatures and to less |
| volatile ends: a small riot of chutes and dispensers crowded the |
| bulkhead on all sides. A few of those openings would choke on my |
| fist: one or two could swallow me whole. <I>Theseus</I>' fabrication |
| plant could build everything from cutlery to cockpits. Give it a big |
| enough matter stockpile and it could have even been built another |
| <I>Theseus</I>, albeit in many small pieces and over a very long |
| time. Some wondered if it could build another crew as well, although |
| we'd all been assured that was impossible. Not even these machines |
| had fine enough fingers to reconstruct a few trillion synapses in the |
| space of a human skull. Not yet, anyway.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I believed it. They would never have shipped us out fully-assembled |
| if there'd been a cheaper alternative.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I faced forward. Putting the back of my head against that sealed |
| hatch I could see almost to <I>Theseus</I>' bow, an uninterrupted |
| line-of-sight extending to a tiny dark bull's-eye thirty meters |
| ahead. It was like staring at a great textured target in shades of |
| white and gray: concentric circles, hatches centered within |
| bulkheads one behind another, perfectly aligned. Every one stood |
| open, in nonchalant defiance of a previous generation's safety codes. |
| We could keep them closed if we wanted to, if it made us feel safer. |
| That was all it would do, though; it wouldn't improve our empirical |
| odds one whit. In the event of trouble those hatches would slam shut |
| long milliseconds before Human senses could even make sense of an |
| alarm. They weren't even computer-controlled. <I>Theseus</I>' body |
| parts had <I>reflexes</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I pushed off against the stern plating—wincing at the tug and |
| stretch of disused tendons—and coasted forward, leaving Fab |
| behind. The shuttle-access hatches to <I>Scylla</I> and <I>Charybdis</I> |
| briefly constricted my passage to either side. Past them the spine |
| widened into a corrugated extensible cylinder two meters across |
| and—at the moment—maybe fifteen long. A pair of ladders |
| ran opposite each other along its length; raised portholes the size |
| of manhole covers stippled the bulkhead to either side. Most of |
| those just looked into the hold. A couple served as general-purpose |
| airlocks, should anyone want to take a stroll beneath the carapace. |
| One opened into my tent. Another, four meters further forward, |
| opened into Bates'. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| From a third, just short of the forward bulkhead, Jukka Sarasti |
| climbed into view like a long white spider.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If he'd been Human I'd have known instantly what I saw there, I'd |
| have smelled <I>murderer</I> all over his topology. And I wouldn't |
| have been able to even guess at the number of his victims, because |
| his affect was so utterly without remorse. The killing of a hundred |
| would leave no more stain on Sarasti's surfaces than the swatting of |
| an insect; guilt beaded and rolled off this creature like water on |
| wax.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Sarasti wasn't human. Sarasti was a whole different animal, and |
| coming from him all those homicidal refractions meant nothing more |
| than <I>predator</I>. He had the inclination, was born to it; |
| whether he had ever acted on it was between him and Mission Control.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Maybe they cut you some slack</I>, I didn't say to him. <I>Maybe |
| it's just a cost of doing business. You're mission-critical, after |
| all. For all I know you cut a deal. You're so very smart, you know |
| we wouldn't have brought you back in the first place if we hadn't |
| </I>needed<I> you. From the day they cracked the vat you knew you |
| had leverage.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Is that how it works, Jukka? You save the world, and the folks |
| who hold your leash agree to look the other way?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| As a child I'd read tales about jungle predators transfixing their |
| prey with a stare. Only after I'd met Jukka Sarasti did I know how |
| it felt. But he wasn't looking at me now. He was focused on |
| installing his own tent, and even if he <I>had</I> looked me in the |
| eye there'd have been nothing to see but the dark wraparound visor he |
| wore in deference to Human skittishness. He ignored me as I grabbed |
| a nearby rung and squeezed past.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could have sworn I smelled raw meat on his breath.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Into the drum (<I>drums</I>, technically; the BioMed hoop at the back |
| spun on its own bearings). I flew through the center of a cylinder |
| sixteen meters across. <I>Theseus</I>' spinal nerves ran along its |
| axis, the exposed plexii and piping bundled against the ladders on |
| either side. Past them, Szpindel's and James' freshly-erected tents |
| rose from nooks on opposite sides of the world. Szpindel himself |
| floated off my shoulder, still naked but for his gloves, and I could |
| tell from the way his fingers moved that his favorite color was |
| green. He anchored himself to one of three stairways to nowhere |
| arrayed around the drum: steep narrow steps rising five vertical |
| meters from the deck into empty air.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The next hatch gaped dead-center of the drum's forward wall; pipes |
| and conduits plunged into the bulkhead to each side. I grabbed a |
| convenient rung to slow myself—biting down once more on the |
| pain—and floated through.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| T-junction. The spinal corridor continued forward, a smaller |
| diverticulum branched off to an EVA cubby and the forward airlock. I |
| stayed the course and found myself back in the crypt, mirror-bright |
| and less than two meters deep. Empty pods gaped to the left; sealed |
| ones huddled to the right. We were so irreplaceable we'd come with |
| replacements. They slept on, oblivious. I'd met three of them back |
| in training. Hopefully none of us would be getting reacquainted any |
| time soon.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Only four pods to starboard, though. No backup for Sarasti.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Another hatchway. Smaller this time. I squeezed through into the |
| bridge. Dim light there, a silent shifting mosaic of icons and |
| alphanumerics iterating across dark glassy surfaces. Not so much |
| bridge as cockpit, and a cramped one at that. I'd emerged between |
| two acceleration couches, each surrounded by a horseshoe array of |
| controls and readouts. Nobody expected to ever <I>use </I>this |
| compartment. <I>Theseus</I> was perfectly capable of running |
| herself, and if she wasn't we were capable of running her from our |
| inlays, and if we weren't the odds were overwhelming that we were all |
| dead anyway. Still, against that astronomically off-the-wall chance, |
| this was where one or two intrepid survivors could pilot the ship |
| home again after everything else had failed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Between the footwells the engineers had crammed one last hatch and |
| one last passageway: to the observation blister on <I>Theseus</I>' |
| prow. I hunched my shoulders (tendons cracked and complained) and |
| pushed through—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —into darkness. Clamshell shielding covered the outside of the |
| dome like a pair of eyelids squeezed tight. A single icon glowed |
| softly from a touchpad to my left; faint stray light followed me |
| through from the spine, brushed dim fingers across the concave |
| enclosure. The dome resolved in faint shades of blue and gray as my |
| eyes adjusted. A stale draft stirred the webbing floating from the |
| rear bulkhead, mixed oil and machinery at the back of my throat. |
| Buckles clicked faintly in the breeze like impoverished wind chimes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I reached out and touched the crystal: the innermost layer of two, |
| warm air piped through the gap between to cut the cold. Not |
| completely, though. My fingertips chilled instantly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Space out there.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Perhaps, en route to our original destination, <I>Theseus</I> had |
| seen something that scared her clear out of the solar system. More |
| likely she hadn't been running away from anything but <I>to</I> |
| something else, something that hadn't been discovered until we'd |
| already died and gone from Heaven. In which case...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I reached back and tapped the touchpad. I half-expected nothing to |
| happen; <I>Theseus'</I> windows could be as easily locked as her comm |
| logs. But the dome split instantly before me, a crack then a |
| crescent then a wide-eyed lidless stare as the shielding slid |
| smoothly back into the hull. My fingers clenched reflexively into a |
| fistful of webbing. The sudden void stretched empty and unforgiving |
| in all directions, and there was nothing to cling to but a metal disk |
| barely four meters across.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Stars, everywhere. So many stars that I could not for the life me |
| understand how the sky could contain them all yet be so black. |
| Stars, and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —nothing else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>What did you expect? </I>I chided myself. <I>An alien mothership |
| hanging off the starboard bow?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Well, why not? We were out here for <I>something</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The others were, anyway. They'd be essential no matter where we'd |
| ended up. But my own situation was a bit different, I realized. <I>My</I> |
| usefulness degraded with distance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And we were over half a light year from home.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"When |
| it is dark enough, you can see the stars." </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Emerson</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Where was I when the lights came down?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was emerging from the gates of Heaven, mourning a father who was—to |
| his own mind, at least—still alive. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It had been scarcely two months since Helen had disappeared under the |
| cowl. Two months by our reckoning, at least. From her perspective |
| it could have been a day or a decade; the Virtually Omnipotent set |
| their subjective clocks along with everything else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She wasn't coming back. She would only deign to see her husband |
| under conditions that amounted to a slap in the face. He didn't |
| complain. He visited as often as she would allow: twice a week, |
| then once. Then every two. Their marriage decayed with the |
| exponential determinism of a radioactive isotope and still he sought |
| her out, and accepted her conditions.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On the day the lights came down, I had joined him at my mother's |
| side. It was a special occasion, the last time we would ever see her |
| in the flesh. For two months her body had lain in state along with |
| five hundred other new ascendants on the ward, open for viewing by |
| the next of kin. The interface was no more real than it would ever |
| be, of course; the body could not talk to us. But at least it was |
| <I>there</I>, its flesh warm, the sheets clean and straight. Helen's |
| lower face was still visible below the cowl, though eyes and ears |
| were helmeted. We could touch her. My father often did. Perhaps |
| some distant part of her still felt it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But eventually someone has to close the casket and dispose of the |
| remains. Room must be made for the new arrivals—and so we came |
| to this last day at my mother's side. Jim took her hand one more |
| time. She would still be available in her world, on her terms, but |
| later this day the body would be packed into storage facilities |
| crowded far too efficiently for flesh and blood visitors. We had |
| been assured that the body would remain intact—the muscles |
| electrically exercised, the body flexed and fed, the corpus kept |
| ready to return to active duty should Heaven experience some |
| inconceivable and catastrophic meltdown. Everything was reversible, |
| we were told. And yet—there were so many who had ascended, and |
| not even the deepest catacombs go on forever. There were rumors of |
| dismemberment, of nonessential body parts hewn away over time |
| according to some optimum-packing algorithm. Perhaps Helen would be |
| a torso this time next year, a disembodied head the year after. |
| Perhaps her chassis would be stripped down to the brain before we'd |
| even left the building, awaiting only that final technological |
| breakthrough that would herald the arrival of the Great Digital |
| Upload.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Rumors, as I say. I personally didn't know of anyone who'd come back |
| after ascending, but then why would anyone want to? Not even Lucifer |
| left Heaven until he was pushed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Dad might have known for sure—Dad knew more than most people, |
| about the things most people weren't supposed to know—but he |
| never told tales out of turn. Whatever he knew, he'd obviously |
| decided its disclosure wouldn't have changed Helen's mind. That |
| would have been enough for him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We donned the hoods that served as day passes for the Unwired, and we |
| met my mother in the spartan visiting room she imagined for these |
| visits. She'd built no windows into the world she occupied, no hint |
| of whatever utopian environment she'd constructed for herself. She |
| hadn't even opted for one of the prefab visiting environments |
| designed to minimize dissonance among visitors. We found ourselves |
| in a featureless beige sphere five meters across. There was nothing |
| in there but her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Maybe not so far removed from her vision of utopia after all</I>, |
| I thought.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My father smiled. "Helen."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jim." She was twenty years younger than the thing on the |
| bed, and still she made my skin crawl. "Siri! You came!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She always used my name. I don't think she ever called me <I>son</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're still happy here?" my father asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wonderful. I do wish you could join us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jim smiled. "Someone has to keep the lights on." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now you <I>know</I> this isn't goodbye," she said. "You |
| can visit whenever you like."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only if you do something about the scenery." Not just a |
| joke, but a lie; Jim would have come at her call even if the gauntlet |
| involved bare feet and broken glass.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And Chelsea, too," Helen continued. "It would be so |
| nice to finally meet her after all this time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Chelsea's <I>gone</I>, Helen," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh yes but I know you stay in touch. I know she was special to |
| you. Just because you're not <I>together</I> any more doesn't mean |
| she can't—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>You know she</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A startling possibility stopped me in mid-sentence: maybe I hadn't |
| actually told them. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Son," Jim said quietly. "Maybe you could give us a |
| moment."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I would have given them a fucking lifetime. I unplugged myself back |
| to the ward, looked from the corpse on the bed to my blind and |
| catatonic father in his couch, murmuring sweet nothings into the |
| datastream. Let them perform for each other. Let them formalize |
| and finalize their so-called relationship in whatever way they saw |
| fit. Maybe, just once, they could even bring themselves to be |
| honest, there in that other world where everything else was a lie. |
| Maybe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt no desire to bear witness either way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But of course I had to go back in for my own formalities. I adopted |
| my role in the familial set-piece one last time, partook of the usual |
| lies. We all agreed that this wasn't going to change anything, and |
| nobody deviated enough from the script to call anyone else a liar on |
| that account. And finally—careful to say <I>until next time</I> |
| rather than <I>goodbye</I>—we took our leave of my mother.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I even suppressed my gag reflex long enough to give her a hug.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jim had his inhaler in hand as we emerged from the darkness. I |
| hoped, without much hope, that he'd throw it into the garbage |
| receptacle as we passed through the lobby. But he raised it to his |
| mouth and took another hit of vassopressin, that he would never be |
| tempted.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fidelity in an aerosol. "You don't need that any more," I |
| said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably not," he agreed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It won't work anyway. You can't imprint on someone who isn't |
| even there, no matter how many hormones you snort. It just—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jim said nothing. We passed beneath the muzzles of sentries panning |
| for infiltrating Realists. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She's <I>gone</I>," I blurted. "She doesn't care if |
| you find someone else. She'd be happy if you did." <I>It would |
| let her pretend the books had been balanced.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She's my wife," he told me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That doesn't mean what it used to. It never did."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He smiled a bit at that. "It's my life, son. I'm comfortable |
| with it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Dad—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't blame her," he said. "And neither should |
| you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Easy for him to say. Easy even to accept the hurt she'd inflicted |
| on him all these years. This cheerful façade here at the end |
| hardly made up for the endless bitter complaints my father had |
| endured throughout living memory. <I>Do you think it's easy when you |
| disappear for months on end? Do you think it's easy always wondering |
| who you're with and what you're doing and if you're even alive? Do |
| you think it's easy raising a child like </I>that<I> on your own?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She'd blamed him for everything, but he bore it gracefully because he |
| knew it was all a lie. He knew he was only the pretense. She wasn't |
| leaving because he was AWOL, or unfaithful. Her departure had |
| nothing to do with him at all. It was me. Helen had left the world |
| because she couldn't stand to look at the thing who'd replaced her |
| son.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I would have pursued it—would have tried yet again to make my |
| father <I>see</I>—but by now we'd left the gates of Heaven for |
| the streets of Purgatory, where pedestrians on all sides murmured in |
| astonishment and stared open-mouthed at the sky. I followed their |
| gaze to a strip of raw twilight between the towers, and gasped—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The stars were falling.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Zodiac had rearranged itself into a precise grid of bright points |
| with luminous tails. It was as though the whole planet had been |
| caught in some great closing net, the knots of its mesh aglow with |
| St. Elmo's fire. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked away to recalibrate my distance vision, to give this |
| ill-behaved hallucination a chance to vanish gracefully before I set |
| my empirical gaze to high-beam. I saw a vampire in that moment, a |
| female, walking among us like the archetypal wolf in sheep's |
| clothing. Vampires were uncommon creatures at street level. I'd |
| never seen one in the flesh before. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She had just stepped onto the street from the building across the |
| way. She stood a head taller than the rest of us, her eyes shining |
| yellow and bright as a cat's in the deepening dark. She realized, as |
| I watched, that something was amiss. She looked around, glanced at |
| the sky—and continued on her way, totally indifferent to the |
| cattle on all sides, to the heavenly portent that had transfixed |
| them. Totally indifferent to the fact that the world had just turned |
| inside-out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was 1035 Greenwich Mean Time, February 13, 2082.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They clenched around the world like a fist, each black as the inside |
| of an event horizon until those last bright moments when they all |
| burned together. They screamed as they died. Every radio up to |
| geostat groaned in unison, every infrared telescope went briefly |
| snowblind. Ashes stained the sky for weeks afterwards; mesospheric |
| clouds, high above the jet stream, turned to glowing rust with every |
| sunrise. The objects, apparently, consisted largely of iron. Nobody |
| ever knew what to make of that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For perhaps the first time in history, the world <I>knew</I> before |
| being <I>told</I>: if you'd seen the sky, you had the scoop. The |
| usual arbiters of newsworthiness, stripped of their accustomed role |
| in filtering reality, had to be content with merely labeling it. It |
| took them ninety minutes to agree on <I>Fireflies</I>. A half hour |
| after that, the first Fourier transforms appeared in the noosphere; |
| to no one's great surprise, the Fireflies had not wasted their dying |
| breaths on static. There was pattern embedded in that terminal |
| chorus, some cryptic intelligence that resisted all earthly analysis. |
| The experts, rigorously empirical, refused to speculate: they only |
| admitted that the Fireflies had said <I>something</I>. They didn't |
| know what.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Everyone else did. How else would you explain 65,536 probes evenly |
| dispersed along a lat-long grid that barely left any square meter of |
| planetary surface unexposed? Obviously the Flies had taken our |
| picture. The whole world had been caught with its pants down in |
| panoramic composite freeze-frame. We'd been <I>surveyed</I>—whether |
| as a prelude to formal introductions or outright invasion was |
| anyone's guess.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My father might have known someone who might have known. But by then |
| he'd long since disappeared, as he always did during times of |
| hemispheric crisis. Whatever he knew or didn't, he left me to find |
| my own answers with everyone else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was no shortage of perspectives. The noosphere seethed with |
| scenarios ranging from utopian to apocalyptic. The Fireflies had |
| seeded lethal germs through the jet stream. The Fireflies had been |
| on a nature safari. The Icarus Array was being retooled to power a |
| doomsday weapon against the aliens. The Icarus Array had already |
| been destroyed. We had decades to react; anything from another solar |
| system would have to obey the lightspeed limit like everyone else. |
| We had days to live; organic warships had just crossed the asteroid |
| belt and would be fumigating the planet within a week.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Like everyone else, I bore witness to lurid speculations and talking |
| heads. I visited blathernodes, soaked myself in other people's |
| opinions. That was nothing new, as far as it went; I'd spent my |
| whole life as a sort of alien ethologist in my own right, watching |
| the world behave, gleaning patterns and protocols, learning the rules |
| that allowed me to infiltrate human society. It had always worked |
| before. Somehow, though, the presence of <I>real </I>aliens had |
| changed the dynamics of the equation. Mere observation didn't |
| satisfy any more. It was as though the presence of this new outgroup |
| had forced me back into the clade whether I liked it or not; the |
| distance between myself and the world suddenly seemed forced and |
| faintly ridiculous.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Yet I couldn't, for my life, figure out how to let it go.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea had always said that telepresence emptied the Humanity from |
| Human interaction. "They say it's indistinguishable," she |
| told me once, "just like having your family right there, |
| snuggled up so you can see them and feel them and smell them next to |
| you. But it's not. It's just shadows on the cave wall. I mean, |
| sure, the shadows come in three-dee color with force-feedback tactile |
| interactivity. They're good enough to fool the civilized brain. But |
| your gut knows those aren't <I>people</I>, even if it can't put its |
| finger on <I>how</I> it knows. They just don't <I>feel</I> real. |
| Know what I mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't. Back then I'd had no clue what she was talking about. But |
| now we were all cavemen again, huddling beneath some overhang while |
| lightning split the heavens and vast formless monsters, barely |
| glimpsed in bright strobe-frozen instants, roared and clashed in the |
| darkness on all sides. There was no comfort in solitude. You |
| couldn't get it from interactive shadows. You needed someone <I>real</I> |
| at your side, someone to hold on to, someone to share your airspace |
| along with your fear and hope and uncertainty.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I imagined the presence of companions who wouldn't vanish the moment |
| I unplugged. But Chelsea was gone, and Pag in her wake. The few |
| others I could have called— peers and former clients with whom |
| my impersonations of rapport had been especially convincing—didn't |
| seem worth the effort. Flesh and blood had its own relationship to |
| reality: necessary, but not sufficient.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Watching the world from a distance, it occurred to me at last: I |
| knew exactly what Chelsea had meant, with her Luddite ramblings about |
| desaturated Humanity and the colorless interactions of virtual space. |
| I'd known all along.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd just never been able to see how it was any different from real |
| life.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you are a machine.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Yes, I know. But imagine you're a different <I>kind</I> of machine, |
| one built from metal and plastic and designed not by blind, haphazard |
| natural selection but by engineers and astrophysicists with their |
| eyes fixed firmly on specific goals. Imagine that your purpose is |
| not to replicate, or even to survive, but to gather information.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I can imagine that easily. It is in fact a much simpler |
| impersonation than the kind I'm usually called on to perform.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I coast through the abyss on the colder side of Neptune's orbit. |
| Most of the time I exist only as an absence, to any observer on the |
| visible spectrum: a moving, asymmetrical silhouette blocking the |
| stars. But occasionally, during my slow endless spin, I glint with |
| dim hints of reflected starlight. If you catch me in those moments |
| you might infer something of my true nature: a segmented creature |
| with foil skin, bristling with joints and dishes and spindly |
| antennae. Here and there a whisper of accumulated frost clings to a |
| joint or seam, some frozen wisp of gas encountered in Jupiter space |
| perhaps. Elsewhere I carry the microscopic corpses of Earthly |
| bacteria who thrived with carefree abandon on the skins of space |
| stations or the benign lunar surface—but who had gone to |
| crystal at only half my present distance from the sun. Now, a breath |
| away from Absolute Zero, they might shatter at a photon's touch. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My heart is warm, at least. A tiny nuclear fire burns in my thorax, |
| leaves me indifferent to the cold outside. It won't go out for a |
| thousand years, barring some catastrophic accident; for a thousand |
| years, I will listen for faint voices from Mission Control and do |
| everything they tell me to. So far they have told me to study |
| comets. Every instruction I have ever received has been a precise |
| and unambiguous elaboration on that one overriding reason for my |
| existence.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Which is why these latest instructions are so puzzling, for they make |
| no sense at all. The frequency is wrong. The signal strength is |
| wrong. I cannot even understand the handshaking protocols. I |
| request clarification.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The response arrives almost a thousand minutes later, and it is an |
| unprecedented mix of orders and requests for information. I answer |
| as best I can: yes, this is the bearing at which signal strength was |
| greatest. No, it is not the usual bearing for Mission Control. Yes, |
| I can retransmit: here it is, all over again. Yes, I will go into |
| standby mode. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I await further instructions. They arrive 839 minutes later, and |
| they tell me to stop studying comets immediately.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I am to commence a controlled precessive tumble that sweeps my |
| antennae through consecutive 5<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>-arc |
| increments along all three axes, with a period of 94 seconds. Upon |
| encountering any transmission resembling the one which confused me, I |
| am to fix upon the bearing of maximal signal strength and derive a |
| series of parameter values. I am also instructed to retransmit the |
| signal to Mission Control.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I do as I'm told. For a long time I hear nothing, but I am |
| infinitely patient and incapable of boredom. Eventually a fleeting, |
| familiar signal brushes against my afferent array. I reacquire and |
| track it to source, which I am well-equipped to describe: a |
| trans-Neptunian comet in the Kuiper Belt, approximately two hundred |
| kilometers in diameter. It is sweeping a 21-cm tightbeam radio wave |
| across the heavens with a periodicity of 4.57 seconds. This beam |
| does not intersect Mission Control's coordinates at any point. It |
| appears to be directed at a different target entirely.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It takes much longer than usual for Mission Control to respond to |
| this information. When it does, it tells me to change course. |
| Mission Control informs me that henceforth my new destination is to |
| be referred to as <I>Burns-Caulfield</I>. Given current fuel and |
| inertial constraints I will not reach it in less than thirty-nine |
| years.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I am to watch nothing else in the meantime. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd been liaising for a team at the Kurzweil Institute, a fractured |
| group of cutting-edge savants convinced they were on the verge of |
| solving the quantum-glial paradox. That particular log-jam had |
| stalled AI for decades; once broken, the experts promised we'd be |
| eighteen months away from the first personality upload and only two |
| years from reliable Human-consciousness emulation in a software |
| environment. It would spell the end of corporeal history, usher in a |
| Singularity that had been waiting impatiently in the wings for nigh |
| on fifty years.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Two months after Firefall, the Institute cancelled my contract.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was actually surprised it had taken them so long. It had cost us |
| so much, this overnight inversion of global priorities, these |
| breakneck measures making up for lost initiative. Not even our shiny |
| new post-scarcity economy could withstand such a seismic shift |
| without lurching towards bankruptcy. Installations in deep space, |
| long since imagined secure by virtue of their remoteness, were |
| suddenly vulnerable for exactly the same reason. Lagrange habitats |
| had to be refitted for defense against an unknown enemy. Commercial |
| ships on the Martian Loop were conscripted, weaponised, and |
| reassigned; some secured the high ground over Mars while others fell |
| sunward to guard the Icarus Array.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It didn't matter that the Fireflies hadn't fired a shot at any of |
| these targets. We simply couldn't afford the risk.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were all in it together, of course, desperate to regain some |
| hypothetical upper hand by any means necessary. Kings and |
| corporations scribbled IOUs on the backs of napkins and promised to |
| sort everything out once the heat was off. In the meantime, the |
| prospect of Utopia in two years took a back seat to the shadow of |
| Armageddon reaching back from next Tuesday. The Kurzweil Institute, |
| like everyone else, suddenly had other things to worry about.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I returned to my apartment, split a bulb of Glenfiddich, and |
| arrayed virtual windows like daisy petals in my head. Everyone Icons |
| debated on all sides, serving up leftovers two weeks past their |
| expiry date: |
| </P> |
| <TABLE ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=532 BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=0 CELLSPACING=0> |
| <COL WIDTH=128> |
| <COL WIDTH=196> |
| <COL WIDTH=209> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Disgraceful breakdown of global security.</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No harm done.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Comsats annihilated. Thousands dead.</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Random</I> collisions. <I>Accidental </I>deaths.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (who sent them?)</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We should have seen them coming. Why didn't we—</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Deep space. Inverse square. Do the math.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>They were </I>stealthed<I>!</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (what do they <I>want</I>?)</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We were raped!</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jesus Christ. They just took our <I>picture</I>.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Why the silence?</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Moon's fine. Mars's fine.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (Where are they?)</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Why haven't they made contact?</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nothing's touched the O'Neills.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Technology Implies Belligerence!</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (Are they coming back?)</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nothing attacked us.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Yet</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nothing <I>invaded</I>.</P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>So far.</I></P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| <TR> |
| <TD WIDTH=128> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=196> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (But where <I>are</I> they?)</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-top: 0.08in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (Are they coming <I>back</I>?)</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-top: 0.08in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| (Anyone?)</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| <TD WIDTH=209> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| </TD> |
| </TR> |
| </TABLE> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jim Moore Voice Only</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| encrypted</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Accept?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The text window blossomed directly in my line of sight, eclipsing the |
| debate. I read it twice. I tried to remember the last time he'd |
| called from the field, and couldn't.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I muted the other windows. "Dad?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Son," he replied after a moment. "Are you well?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like everyone else. Still wondering whether we should be |
| celebrating or crapping our pants."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He didn't answer immediately. "It's a big question, all right," |
| he said at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't suppose you could give me any advice? They're not |
| telling us anything at ground level."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was a rhetorical request. His silence was hardly necessary to |
| make the point. "I know," I added after a moment. "Sorry. |
| It's just, they're saying the Icarus Array went down, and—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You know I can't—oh." My father paused. "That's |
| ridiculous. Icarus's fine."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It is?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He seemed to be weighing his words. "The Fireflies probably |
| didn't even notice it. There's no particle trail as long as it stays |
| offstream, and it would be buried in solar glare unless someone knew |
| where to search."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was my turn to fall silent. This conversation felt suddenly |
| <I>wrong</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because when my father went on the job, he went dark. He <I>never</I> |
| called his family.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because even when my father came <I>off</I> the job, he never talked |
| about it. It wouldn't matter whether the Icarus Array was still |
| online or whether it had been shredded and thrown into the sun like a |
| thousand kilometers of torn origami; he wouldn't tell either tale |
| unless an official announcement had been made. Which—I |
| refreshed an index window just to be sure— it hadn't.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because while my father was a man of few words, he was <I>not </I>a |
| man of frequent, indecisive pauses—and he had hesitated before |
| each and every line he'd spoken in this exchange.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tugged ever-so-gently on the line—"But they've sent |
| ships."—and started counting.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>One one-thousand, two one-thousand—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just a precaution. Icarus was overdue for a visit anyway. You |
| don't swap out your whole grid without at least dropping in and |
| kicking the new tires first."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nearly three seconds to respond.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're on the moon," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pause. "Close enough." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What are you—Dad, why are you telling me this? Isn't |
| this a security breach?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're going to get a call," he told me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "From who? Why?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're assembling a team. The kind of—people you deal |
| with." My father was too rational to dispute the contributions |
| of the recons and hybrids in our midst, but he'd never been able to |
| hide his mistrust of them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They need a synthesist," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Isn't it lucky you've got one in the family."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Radio bounced back and forth. "This isn't nepotism, Siri. I |
| wanted very much for them to pick someone else."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks for the vote of conf—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But he'd seen it coming, and preempted me before my words could cross |
| the distance: "It's not a slap at your abilities and you know |
| it. You're simply the most qualified, and the work is vital."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So why—" I began, and stopped. He wouldn't want to |
| keep me away from some theoretical gig in a WestHem lab.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's this about, Dad?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The Fireflies. They found something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>What</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A radio signal. From the Kuiper. We traced the bearing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're <I>talking</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not to us." He cleared his throat. "It was |
| something of a fluke that we even intercepted the transmission."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Who are they talking to?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We don't know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Friendly? Hostile?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Son, we don't <I>know</I>. The encryption seems similar, but |
| we can't even be sure of that. All we have is the location."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you're sending a team." <I>You're sending </I>me. |
| We'd never gone to the Kuiper before. It had been decades since we'd |
| even sent robots. Not that we lacked the capacity. We just hadn't |
| bothered; everything we needed was so much closer to home. The |
| Interplanetary Age had stagnated at the asteroids.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But now something lurked at the furthest edge of our backyard, |
| calling into the void. Maybe it was talking to some other solar |
| system. Maybe it was talking to something closer, something <I>en |
| route</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not the kind of situation we can safely ignore," my |
| father said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What about probes?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of course. But we can't wait for them to report back. The |
| follow-up's been fast-tracked; updates can be sent en route."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He gave me a few extra seconds to digest that. When I still didn't |
| speak, he said, "You have to understand. Our only edge is that |
| as far as we know, Burns-Caulfield doesn't know we're on to it. We |
| have to get as much as we can in whatever window of opportunity that |
| grants us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But <I>Burns-Caulfield</I> had hidden itself. <I>Burns-Caulfield |
| </I>might not welcome a forced introduction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What if I refuse?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The timelag seemed to say <I>Mars</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know you, son. You won't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But if I <I>did</I>. If I'm the best qualified, if the job's |
| so vital…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He didn't have to answer. I didn't have to ask. At these kind of |
| stakes, mission-critical elements didn't get the luxury of choice. I |
| wouldn't even have the childish satisfaction of holding my breath and |
| refusing to play—the will to resist is no less mechanical than |
| the urge to breathe. Both can be subverted with the right |
| neurochemical keys. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You killed my Kurzweill contract," I realized.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's the least of what we did."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We let the vacuum between us speak for a while.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If I could go back and undo the—the thing that made you |
| what you are," Dad said after a while, "I would. In a |
| second."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I have to go. I just wanted to give you the heads-up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. Thanks."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I love you, son."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Where are you? Are you coming back?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks," I said again. "That's good to know." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This is what my father could not unmake. This is what I am:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I am the bridge between the bleeding edge and the dead center. I |
| stand between the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I <I>am</I> the curtain.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I am not an entirely new breed. My roots reach back to the dawn of |
| civilization but those precursors served a different function, a less |
| honorable one. They only greased the wheels of social stability; |
| they would sugarcoat unpleasant truths, or inflate imaginary bogeymen |
| for political expedience. They were vital enough in their way. Not |
| even the most heavily-armed police state can exert brute force on all |
| of its citizens all of the time. Meme management is so much subtler; |
| the rose-tinted refraction of perceived reality, the contagious fear |
| of threatening alternatives. There have always been those tasked |
| with the rotation of informational topologies, but throughout most of |
| history they had little to do with increasing its <I>clarity</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The new Millennium changed all that. We've surpassed ourselves now, |
| we're exploring terrain beyond the limits of merely human |
| understanding. Sometimes its contours, even in conventional space, |
| are just too intricate for our brains to track; other times its very |
| axes extend into dimensions inconceivable to minds built to fuck and |
| fight on some prehistoric grassland. So many things constrain us, |
| from so many directions. The most altruistic and sustainable |
| philosophies fail before the brute brain-stem imperative of |
| self-interest. Subtle and elegant equations <I>predict</I> the |
| behavior of the quantum world, but none can <I>explain</I> it. After |
| four thousand years we can't even prove that reality exists beyond |
| the mind of the first-person dreamer. We have such need of intellects |
| greater than our own.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But we're not very good at building them. The forced matings of |
| minds and electrons succeed and fail with equal spectacle. Our |
| hybrids become as brilliant as savants, and as autistic. We graft |
| people to prosthetics, make their overloaded motor strips juggle meat |
| and machinery, and shake our heads when their fingers twitch and |
| their tongues stutter. Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow |
| so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the |
| hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the |
| barely-intelligent creatures left behind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, |
| you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their |
| answers. You have to take their word on faith—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —Or you use information theory to <I>flatten</I> it for you, to |
| squash the tesseract into two dimensions and the Klein bottle into |
| three, to simplify reality and pray to whatever Gods survived the |
| millennium that your honorable twisting of the truth hasn't ruptured |
| any of its load-bearing pylons. You hire people like me; the |
| crossbred progeny of profilers and proof assistants and information |
| theorists.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In formal settings you'd call me Synthesist. On the street you call |
| me <I>jargonaut</I> or <I>poppy</I>. If you're one of those savants |
| whose hard-won truths are being bastardized and lobotomized for |
| powerful know-nothings interested only in market share, you might |
| call me a <I>mole</I> or a <I>chaperone</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If you're Isaac Szpindel you'd call me <I>commissar</I>, and while |
| the jibe would be a friendly one, it would also be more than that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I've never convinced myself that we made the right choice. I can |
| cite the usual justifications in my sleep, talk endlessly about the |
| rotational topology of information and the irrelevance of semantic |
| comprehension. But after all the words, I'm still not sure. I don't |
| know if anyone else is, either. Maybe it's just some grand |
| consensual con, marks and players all in league. We won't admit that |
| our creations are beyond us; they may speak in tongues, but our |
| priests can read those signs. Gods leave their algorithms carved |
| into the mountainside but it's just li'l ol' me bringing the tablets |
| down to the masses, and I don't threaten anyone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe the Singularity happened years ago. We just don't want to |
| admit we were left behind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"All |
| kinds of animals living here. Occasional demons too." </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| — <FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Ian |
| Anderson, <I>Catfish Rising</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Third Wave, they called us. All in the same boat, driving into |
| the long dark courtesy of a bleeding-edge prototype crash-graduated |
| from the simulators a full eighteen months ahead of schedule. In a |
| less fearful economy, such violence to the timetable would have |
| bankrupted four countries and fifteen multicorps.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The first two waves came out of the gate in even more of a hurry. I |
| didn't find out what had happened to them until thirty minutes before |
| the briefing, when Sarasti released the telemetry into ConSensus. |
| Then I opened wide; experience flooded up my inlays and spilled |
| across my parietal cortex in glorious high-density fast forward. |
| Even now I can bring those data back, fresh as the day they were |
| recorded. I'm <I>there</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'm <I>them</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I am unmanned. I am disposable. I am souped-up and |
| stripped-down, a telematter drive with a couple of cameras bolted to |
| the front end, pushing gees that would turn meat to jelly. I sprint |
| joyously toward the darkness, my twin brother a stereoscopic hundred |
| klicks to starboard, dual streams of backspat pions boosting us to |
| relativity before poor old </I>Theseus<I> had even crawled past Mars.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>But now, six billion kilometers to stern, Mission Control turns |
| off the tap and leaves us coasting. The comet swells in our sights, |
| a frozen enigma sweeping its signal across the sky like a lighthouse |
| beam. We bring rudimentary senses to bear and stare it down on a |
| thousand wavelengths. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We've lived for this moment.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We see an erratic wobble that speaks of recent collisions. We see |
| scars—smooth icy expanses where once-acned skin has liquefied |
| and refrozen, far too recently for the insignificant sun at our backs |
| to be any kind of suspect.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We see an astronomical impossibility: a comet with a heart of |
| refined iron.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Burns-Caufield sings as we glide past. Not to us; it ignores our |
| passage as it ignored our approach. It sings to someone else |
| entirely. Perhaps we'll meet that audience some day. Perhaps |
| they're waiting in the desolate wastelands ahead of us. Mission |
| Control flips us onto our backs, keeps us fixed on target past any |
| realistic hope of acquisition. They send last-ditch instructions, |
| squeeze our fading signals for every last bit among the static. I |
| can sense their frustration, their reluctance to let us go; once or |
| twice, we're even asked if some judicious mix of thrust and gravity |
| might let us linger here a bit longer. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>But deceleration is for pansies. We're headed for the </I>stars<I>. |
| </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Bye, Burnsie. Bye, Mission Control. Bye, Sol. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>See you at heat death.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Warily, we close on target.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>There are three of us in the second wave—slower than our |
| predecessors, yes, but still so much faster than anything |
| flesh-constrained. We are weighed down by payloads which make us |
| virtually omniscient. We see on every wavelength, from radio to |
| string. Our autonomous microprobes measure everything our masters |
| anticipated; tiny onboard assembly lines can build tools from the |
| atoms up, to assess the things they did not. Atoms, scavenged from |
| where we are, join with ions beamed from where we were: thrust and |
| materiel accumulate in our bellies.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>This extra mass has slowed us, but midpoint braking maneuvers have |
| slowed us even more. The last half of this journey has been a |
| constant fight against momentum from the first. It is not an |
| efficient way to travel. In less-hurried times we would have built |
| early to some optimal speed, perhaps slung around a convenient planet |
| for a little extra </I>oomph<I>, coasted most of the way. But time |
| is pressing, so we burn at both ends. We must </I>reach<I> our |
| destination; we cannot afford to pass it by, cannot afford the |
| kamikaze exuberance of the first wave. They merely glimpsed the lay |
| of the land. We must map it down to the motes.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We must be more </I>responsible<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Now, slowing towards orbit, we see everything they saw and more. |
| We see the scabs, and the impossible iron core. We hear the singing. |
| And there, just beneath the comet's frozen surface, we see |
| </I>structure<I>: an infiltration of architecture into geology. We |
| are not yet close enough to squint, and radar is too long in the |
| tooth for fine detail. But we are smart, and there are three of us, |
| widely separated in space. The wavelengths of three radar sources |
| can be calibrated to interfere at some predetermined point of |
| convergence—and those tripartite echoes, hologramatically |
| remixed, will increase resolution by a factor of twenty-seven.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Burns-Caulfield stops singing the moment we put our plan into |
| action. In the next instant I go blind.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>It's a temporary aberration, a reflexive amping of filters to |
| compensate for the overload. My arrays are back online in seconds, |
| diagnostics green within and without. I reach out to the others, |
| confirm identical experiences, identical recoveries. We are all |
| still fully functional, unless the sudden increase in ambient ion |
| density is some kind of sensory artefact. We are ready to continue |
| our investigation of Burns-Caulfield.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>The only real problem is that Burns-Caulfield seems to have |
| disappeared...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus </I>carried no regular crew—no navigators or |
| engineers, no one to swab the decks, no meat wasted on tasks that |
| machinery orders of mag smaller could perform orders of mag better. |
| Let superfluous deckhands weigh down other ships, if the nonAscendent |
| hordes needed to attach some pretense of usefulness to their lives. |
| Let them infest vessels driven only by commercial priorities. The |
| only reason <I>we</I> were here was because nobody had yet optimized |
| software for First Contact. Bound past the edge of the solar |
| system, already freighted with the fate of the world, <I>Theseus</I> |
| wasted no mass on self-esteem.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So here we were, rehydrated and squeaky-clean: Isaac Szpindel, to |
| study the aliens. The Gang of Four—Susan James and her |
| secondary personae— to talk to them. Major Amanda Bates was |
| here to fight, if necessary. And Jukka Sarasti to command us all, to |
| move us like chess pieces on some multidimensional game board that |
| only vampires could see.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd arrayed us around a conference table that warped gently through |
| the Commons, keeping a discreet and constant distance from the |
| curved deck beneath. The whole drum was furnished in Early Concave, |
| tricked unwary and hung-over brains into thinking they were looking |
| at the world through fisheye lenses. In deference to the creakiness |
| of the<I> nouveaux undead</I> it spun at a mere fifth of a gee, but |
| it was just warming up. We'd be at half-grav in six hours, stuck |
| there for eighteen out of every twenty-four until the ship decided we |
| were fully recovered. For the next few days, free-fall would be a |
| rare and blesséd thing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Light sculptures appeared on the tabletop. Sarasti could have fed |
| the information directly to our inlays— the whole briefing |
| could have gone through ConSensus, without the need to assemble |
| physically in the same place— but if you want to be sure |
| everyone's paying attention, you bring them together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel leaned in conspiratorially at my side. "Or maybe the |
| bloodsucker just gets off seeing all this meat in close quarters, |
| eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If Sarasti heard he didn't show it, not even to me. He pointed to a |
| dark heart at the center of the display, his eyes lost behind black |
| glass. "Oasa object. Infrared emitter, methane class." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On the display it was—nothing. Our apparent destination was a |
| black disk, a round absence of stars. In real life it weighed in at |
| over ten Jupiters and measured twenty percent wider at the belly. It |
| was directly in our path: too small to burn, too remote for the |
| reflection of distant sunlight, too heavy for a gas giant, too light |
| for a brown dwarf. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "When did <I>that</I> show up?" Bates squeezed her rubber |
| ball in one hand, the knuckles whitening. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "X-ray spike appears during the '76 microwave survey." Six |
| years before Firefall. "Never confirmed, never reacquired. |
| Like a torsion flare from an L-class dwarf, but we should see |
| anything big enough to generate that kind of effect and the sky's |
| dark on that bearing. IAU calls it a statistical artefact."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's eyebrows drew together like courting caterpillers. "What |
| changed?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti smiled faintly, keeping his mouth closed. "The metabase |
| gets—<I>crowded</I>, after Firefall. Everyone <I>skittish</I>, |
| looking for clues. After Burns-Caulfield explodes—" He |
| clicked at the back of his throat. "Turns out the spike might |
| arise from a subdwarf object after all, if the magnetosphere's |
| torqued enough."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates: "Torqued by what?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't know." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Layers of statistical inference piled up on the table while Sarasti |
| sketched background: even with a solid bearing and half the world's |
| attention, the object had hidden from all but the most intensive |
| search. A thousand telescopic snapshots had been stacked one on |
| another and squeezed through a dozen filters before something emerged |
| from the static, just below the three-meter band and the threshold of |
| certainty. For the longest time it hadn't even been real: just a |
| probabilistic ghost until <I>Theseus</I> got close enough to collapse |
| the waveform. A quantum particle, heavy as ten Jupiters. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Earthbound cartographers were calling it <I>Big Ben</I>. <I>Theseus</I> |
| had barely passed Saturn's orbit when it showed up in the residuals. |
| That discovery would have been moot for anyone else; no other ship |
| caught en route could have packed enough fuel for anything but the |
| long dejected loop back home. But <I>Theseus</I>' thin, infinitely |
| attenuate fuel line reached all the way back to the sun; she could |
| turn on the proverbial dime. We'd changed course in our sleep and |
| the Icarus stream tracked our moves like a cat after prey, feeding us |
| at lightspeed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And here we were.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Talk about long shots," Szpindel grumbled.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Across the table, Bates flicked her wrist. Her ball sailed over my |
| head; I heard it bounce off the deck (<I>not the deck</I>, something |
| in me amended: <I>handrail</I>). "We're assuming the comet was |
| a deliberate decoy, then."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti nodded. The ball riccocheted back into my line of sight high |
| overhead and disappeared briefly behind the spinal bundle, looping |
| through some eccentric, counterintuitive parabola in the drum's |
| feeble grav. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So they want to be left alone."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti steepled his fingers and turned his face in her direction. |
| "That your recommendation?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She wished it was. "No, sir. I'm just saying that |
| Burns-Caulfield took a lot of resources and effort to set up. |
| Whoever built it obviously values their anonymity and has the |
| technology to protect it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The ball bounced one last time and wobbled back towards the Commons. |
| Bates half-hopped from her seat (she floated briefly), barely |
| catching it on its way past. There remained a new-born-animal |
| awkwardness to her movements, half Coriolis, half residual rigor. |
| Still: a big improvement in four hours. The rest of the Humans were |
| barely past the walking stage.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe it wasn't much trouble for <I>them</I> at all, eh?" |
| Szpindel was musing. "Maybe it was dead easy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "In which case they might or might not be as xenophobic, but |
| they're even more advanced. We don't want to rush into this."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti turned back to the simmering graphics. "So?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates kneaded the recovered ball with her fingertips. "The |
| second mouse gets the cheese. We may have blown our top-of-the-line |
| recon in the Kuiper, but we don't have to go in blind. Send in our |
| own drones along separate vectors. Hold off on a close approach |
| until we at least know whether we're dealing with friendlies or |
| hostiles."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James shook her head. "If they were hostile, they could have |
| packed the Fireflies with antimatter. Or sent one big object instead |
| of sixty thousand little ones, let the impact take us out."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The Fireflies only imply an initial curiosity," Bates |
| said. "Who knows if they liked what they saw?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What if this whole <I>diversion</I> theory's just so much |
| shit?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned, briefly startled. James's mouth had made the words; <I>Sascha</I> |
| had spoken them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You wanna stay hidden, you don't light up the sky with fucking |
| <I>fireworks</I>," she continued. "You don't need a |
| diversion if nobody's looking for you, and nobody's looking for you |
| if you lie low. If they were so <I>curious</I>, they could've just |
| snuck in a spycam."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Risks detection," the vampire said mildly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hate to break it, Jukka, but the <I>Fireflies</I> didn't |
| exactly slip under the rad—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti opened his mouth, closed it again. Filed teeth, briefly |
| visible, clicked audibly behind his face. Tabletop graphics |
| reflected off his visor, a band of writhing polychrome distortions |
| where eyes should be.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha shut up.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti continued. "They trade stealth for speed. By the time |
| you react, they already have what they want." He spoke quietly, |
| patiently, a well-fed predator explaining the rules of the game to |
| prey that really should know better: <I>the longer it takes me to |
| track you down, the more hope you have of escaping</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Sascha had already fled. Her surfaces had scattered like a flock |
| of panicked starlings, and the next time Susan James' mouth opened, |
| it was Susan James who spoke through it. "Sascha's aware of the |
| current paradigm, Jukka. She's simply worried that it might be |
| wrong."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Got another we could trade it on?" Szpindel wondered. |
| "More options? Longer warranty?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know." James sighed. "I guess not. It's |
| just—<I>odd</I>, that they'd want to actively mislead us. I'd |
| hoped they were merely— well." She spread her hands. |
| "Probably no big deal. I'm sure they'll still be willing to |
| talk, if we handle the introductions right. We just need to be a |
| little more cautious, perhaps..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti unfolded himself from his chair and loomed over us. "We |
| go in. What we know weighs against further delay."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates frowned and pitched her ball back into orbit. "Sir, all |
| we actually <I>know</I> is that an Oasa emitter's in our path. We |
| don't even know if there's anyone <I>there</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There is," Sarasti said. "They expect us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Someone's joints cracked in the |
| silence.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Er..." Szpindel began. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Without looking, Sarasti flicked out his arm and snatched Bates' |
| returning ball from the air. "Ladar pings <I>Theseus</I> four |
| hours forty-eight minutes ago. We respond with an identical signal. |
| Nothing. Probe launches half-hour before we wake up. We don't go in |
| blind, but we don't wait. They <I>see</I> us already. Longer we |
| wait, greater risk of countermeasures."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at the dark featureless placeholder on the table: bigger |
| than Jupiter and we couldn't even see it yet. Something in the |
| shadow of that mass had just reached out with casual, unimaginable |
| precision and tapped us on the nose with a laser beam.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This was not going to be an even match.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel spoke for all of us: "You knew that all along? You're |
| telling us <I>now</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This time Sarasti's smile was wide and toothy. It was as though a |
| gash had opened in the lower half of his face.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe it was a predator thing. He just couldn't help playing with |
| his food.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't so much the way they looked. The elongate limbs, the pale |
| skin, the canines and the extended mandible—noticeable, yes, |
| even alien, but not disturbing, not <I>frightening</I>. Not even the |
| eyes, really. The eyes of dogs and cats shine in the darkness; we |
| don't shiver at the sight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not the way they looked. The way they <I>moved</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something in the reflexes, maybe. The way they held their limbs: |
| like mantis limbs, long jointed things you just <I>knew </I>could |
| reach out and snatch you from right across the room, any time they |
| felt like it. When Sarasti looked at me—really <I>looked</I>, |
| naked-eyed, unfiltered by the visor— a half-million years just |
| melted away. The fact that he was extinct meant nothing. The fact |
| that we'd come so far, grown strong enough to resurrect our own |
| nightmares to serve us...meant nothing. The genes aren't fooled. |
| They know what to fear.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of course, you had to experience it in person. Robert Paglini knew |
| the theory of vampires down the molecules, but even with all those |
| technical specs in his head he never really <I>got</I> it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He called me, before we left. I hadn't been expecting it; ever since |
| the roster had been announced our watches had blocked calls from |
| anyone not explicitly contact-listed. I'd forgotten that Pag had |
| been. We hadn't spoken since Chelsea. I'd given up on ever hearing |
| from him again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But there he was. "Pod-man." He smiled, a tentative |
| overture. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's good to see you," I said, because that's what people |
| said in similar situations. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, well I saw your name in the noose. You've made it big, |
| for a baseline."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not so big."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Crap. You're the vanguard of the Human Race. You're our |
| first, last, and only hope against the unknown. Man, you <I>showed</I> |
| them." He held his fist up and shook it, vicariously |
| triumphant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Showing them</I> had become a cornerstone of Robert Paglino's |
| life. He'd really made it work for him, too, overcome the handicap |
| of a natural birth with retrofits and enhancements and sheer |
| bloody-mindedness. In a world in which Humanity had become redundant |
| in unprecedented numbers, we'd both retained the status of another |
| age: <I>working professional</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you're taking orders from a vamp," he said now. "Talk |
| about fighting fire with fire."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I guess it's practice. Until we run up against the real |
| thing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He laughed. I couldn't imagine why. But I smiled back anyway.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It <I>was</I> good to see him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So, what are they like?" Pag asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Vampires? I don't know. Just met my first one yesterday."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hard to read. Didn't even seem to be aware of his surroundings |
| sometimes, he seemed to be... off in his own little world."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He's aware all right. Those things are so fast it's scary. |
| You know they can hold both aspects of a Necker cube in their heads |
| at the same time?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The term rang a bell. I subtitled, and saw the thumbnail of a |
| familiar wireframe box:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| <IMG SRC="Blindsight_html_5c3275b3.png" NAME="Graphic1" ALIGN=BOTTOM WIDTH=122 HEIGHT=122 BORDER=0></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now I remembered: classic ambiguous illusion. Sometimes the shaded |
| panel seemed to be in front, sometimes behind. The perspective |
| flipped back and forth as you watched.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You or I, we can only see it one way or the other," Pag |
| was saying. "Vamps see it both ways <I>at once</I>. Do you |
| have any <I>idea</I> what kind of an edge that gives 'em?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not enough of one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Touché</I>. But hey, not their fault neutral traits |
| get fixed in small populations."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know if I'd call the Crucifix glitch <I>neutral</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was at first. How many intersecting right angles do you see |
| in nature?" He waved one dismissive hand. "Anyway, that's |
| not the point. The point is they can do something that's |
| neurologically impossible for us Humans. They can hold <I>simultaneous |
| multiple worldviews</I>, Pod-man. They just <I>see</I> things we |
| have to work out step-by-step, they don't have to <I>think</I> about |
| it. You know, there isn't a single baseline human who could just |
| tell you, just off the top of their heads, every prime number between |
| one and a billion? In the old days, only a few autistics could do |
| shit like that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He never uses the past tense," I murmered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Huh? Oh, that." Pag nodded. "They never <I>experience</I> |
| the past tense. It's just another thread to them. They don't |
| remember stuff, they <I>relive</I> it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, like a post-traumatic flashback?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not so traumatic." He grimaced. "Not for <I>them</I>, |
| at least."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So this is obviously your current hot spot? Vampires?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Pod, vampires are the capital-Hot spot for <I>anyone</I> with a |
| 'neuro' in their c.v. I'm just doing a couple of histology papers. |
| Pattern-matching receptors, Mexican-hat arrays, reward/irrelevance |
| filters. The eyes, basically."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Right." I hesitated. "Those kind of throw you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No <I>shit</I>." Pag nodded knowingly. "That tap |
| lucidum of theirs, that <I>shine</I>. Scary." He shook his |
| head, impressed all over again at the recollection.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You've never met one," I surmised.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, in the flesh? I'd give my left ball. Why?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not the shine. It's the—" I groped for a word |
| that fit— "The <I>attitude</I>, maybe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah," he said after a bit. "I guess sometimes |
| you've just gotta be there, huh? Which is why I envy you, Pod-man."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You shouldn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I should. Even if you never meet whoever sent the 'Flies, |
| you're in for one Christly research opportunity with that—Sarasti, |
| is it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wasted on me. The only neuro in <I>my</I> file's under medical |
| history."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He laughed. "Anyway, like I said, I just saw your name in the |
| headlines and I figured, hey, the man's leaving in a couple of |
| months, I should probably stop waiting around for <I>him</I> to |
| call."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It had been over two years. "I didn't think I'd get through. I |
| thought you'd shitlisted me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nah. Never." He looked down, though, and fell silent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But you should have called her," he said at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She was <I>dying</I>. You should've—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There wasn't time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He let the lie sit there for a while.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway," he said at last. "I just wanted to wish you |
| luck." Which wasn't exactly true either.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks. I appreciate that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Kick their alien asses. If aliens have asses."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There's five of us, Pag. Nine if you count the backups. We're |
| not exactly an army."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just an expression, fellow mammal. Bury the hatchet. Damn the |
| torpedoes. Soothe the serpent."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Raise the white flag</I>, I thought. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I guess you're busy," he said, "I'll—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Look, you want to get together? In airspace? I haven't been |
| to QuBit's in a while."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Love to, Pod. Unfortunately I'm in Mankoya. Splice'n'dice |
| workshop."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, you mean <I>physically</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Cutting-edge research. Old-school habits."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Too bad."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway, I'll let you go. Just wanted, you know—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks," I said again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So, you know. Bye," Robert Paglino told me. Which was, |
| when you got down to it, the reason he'd called.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He wasn't expecting another chance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag blamed me for the way it had ended with Chelsea. Fair enough. I |
| blamed him for the way it began.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd gone into neuroeconomics at least partly because his childhood |
| buddy had turned into a pod person before his eyes. I'd ended up in |
| Synthesis for roughly the same reason. Our paths had diverged, and |
| we didn't see each other in the flesh all that often; but two decades |
| after I'd brutalized a handful of children on his behalf, Robert |
| Paglino was still my best and only friend.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You need to seriously thaw out," he told me, "And I |
| know just the lady to handle the oven mitts."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That is perhaps the worst use of metaphor in the history of |
| human language," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Seriously, Pod. She'll be good for you. A, a |
| <I>counterbalance</I>—ease you a bit closer to the comfy mean, |
| you know?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, Pag, I don't. What is she, another neuroeconomist?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Neuroaestheticist," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There's still a market for those?" I couldn't imagine |
| how; why pay to tweak your compatibility with some significant other, |
| when significant others themselves were so out of fashion?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not much of one," Pag admitted. "Fact is, she's |
| pretty much retired. But she's still got the tools, my man. Very |
| thigmotactic. Likes all her relationships face-to-face and in the |
| flesh."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I dunno, Pag. Sounds like work."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not like <I>your</I> work. She's got to be easier than the |
| bleeding composites you front for. She's smart, she's sexy, and |
| she's nicely inside the standard deev except for the personal contact |
| thing. Which is not so much outright perversion as charming fetish. |
| In your case it could even be therapeutic."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If I wanted therapy I'd see a therapist."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She does a bit of that too, actually."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah?" And then, despite myself, "Any good?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked me up and down. "No one's <I>that</I> good. That's |
| not what this is. I just figured you two would click. Chelse is one |
| of the few who might not be completely put off by your intimacy |
| issues."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Everyone</I>'s got intimacy issues these days, in case you |
| hadn't noticed." He must have; the population had been dropping |
| for decades.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I was being euphemistic. I meant your aversion to general |
| Human contact."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Making it euphemistic to call you Human?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He grinned. "Different deal. We got history."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No thanks."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Too late. She's already en route to the appointed place."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Appoin—you're an asshole, Pag."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The tightest."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Which was how I found myself intrusively face-to-face in an airspace |
| lounge south of Beth and Bear. The lighting was low and indirect, |
| creeping from under seats and the edges of tables; the chromatics, |
| this afternoon at least, were defiantly longwave. It was a place |
| where baselines could pretend to see in infrared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I pretended for a moment, assessing the woman in the corner booth: |
| gangly and glorious, half-a-dozen ethnicities coexisting peacefully |
| with no single voice dominant. Something glowed on her cheek, a |
| faint emerald staccato against the ambient red shift. Her hair |
| floated in a diffuse ebony cloud about her head; as I neared I |
| caught occasional glints of metal within that nimbus, the threads of |
| a static generator purveying the illusion of weightlessness. In |
| normal light her blood-red skin would doubtless shift down to the |
| fashionable butterscotch of the unrepentant mongrel.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She <I>was</I> attractive, but so was everyone in this kind of light; |
| the longer the wavelength, the softer the focus. There's a reason |
| fuckcubbies don't come with fluorescent lights.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>You will not fall for this</I>, I told myself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Chelsea," she said. Her little finger rested on one of |
| the table's inset trickle-chargers. "Former neuroaestheticist, |
| presently a parasite on the Body Economic thanks to genes and |
| machines on the cutting edge."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The glow on her cheek flapped bright lazy wings: a tattoo, a |
| bioluminescent butterfly. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri," I said. "Freelance synthesist, indentured |
| servant to the genes and machines that turned you into a parasite."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She waved at the empty seat. I took it, assessing the system before |
| me, sizing up the best approach for a fast yet diplomatic disconnect. |
| The set of her shoulders told me she enjoyed lightscapes, and was |
| embarrassed to admit it. Monahan was her favorite artist. She |
| thought herself a natural girl because she'd stayed on chemical |
| libidinals all these years, even though a synaptic edit would have |
| been simpler. She revelled in her own inconsistency: a woman whose |
| professional machinery edited thought itself, yet mistrustful of the |
| dehumanising impact of telephones. Innately affectionate, and |
| innately afraid of unreturned affection, and indomitably unwilling to |
| let any of that stop her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She liked what she saw when looked at me. She was a little afraid of |
| that, too.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea gestured at my side of the table. The touchpads there glowed |
| soft, dissonant sapphire in the bloody light, like a set of splayed |
| fingerprints. "Good dope here. Extra hydroxyl on the ring, or |
| something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Assembly-line neuropharm doesn't do much for me; it's optimized for |
| people with more meat in their heads. I fingered one of the pads for |
| appearances, and barely felt the tingle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So. A Synthesist. Explaining the Incomprehensible to the |
| Indifferent."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I smiled on cue. "More like bridging the gap between the people |
| who make the breakthroughs and the people who take the credit for |
| them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She smiled back. "So how do you do it? All those optimized |
| frontal lobes and refits—I mean, if they're incomprehensible, |
| how do you comprehend them?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It helps to find pretty much everyone else incomprehensible |
| too. Provides experience." There. That should force a bit of |
| distance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It didn't. She thought I was joking. I could see her lining up to |
| push for more details, to ask questions about what I did, which would |
| lead to questions about <I>me</I>, which would lead—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tell me what it's like," I said smoothly, "rewiring |
| people's heads for a living." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea grimaced; the butterfly on her cheek fluttered nervously at |
| the motion, wings brightening. "God, you make it sound like we |
| turn them into zombies or something. They're just tweaks, mainly. |
| Changing taste in music or cuisine, you know, optimizing mate |
| compatibility. It's all completely reversible."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There aren't drugs for that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nah. Too much developmental variation between brains; our |
| targeting is <I>really</I> fine-scale. But it's not all microsurgery |
| and fried synapses, you know. You'd be surprised how much rewiring |
| can be done noninvasively. You can start all sorts of cascades just |
| by playing certain sounds in the right order, or showing images with |
| the right balance of geometry and emotion."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I assume those are new techniques."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not really. Rhythm and music hang their hats on the same basic |
| principle. We just turned art into science."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, but when?" The recent past, certainly. Sometime |
| within the past twenty years or so—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her voice grew suddenly quiet. "Robert told me about your |
| operation. Some kind of viral epilepsy, right? Back when you were |
| just a tyke."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd never explicitly asked him to keep it a secret. What was the |
| difference anyway? I'd made a full recovery.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Besides, Pag still thought that had happened to someone <I>else</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know your specifics," Chelsea continued gently. |
| "But from the sound of it, noninvasive techniques wouldn't have |
| helped. I'm sure they only did what they had to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to suppress the thought, and couldn't: <I>I like this woman.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt something then, a strange, unfamiliar sensation that somehow |
| loosened my vertebrae. The chair felt subtly, indefinably more |
| comfortable at my back. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway." My silence had thrown her off-stride. "Haven't |
| done it much since the bottom dropped out of the market. But it <I>did</I> |
| leave me with a fondness for face-to-face encounters, if you know |
| what I mean."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. Pag said you took your sex in the first-person."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She nodded. "I'm very old-school. You okay with that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I wasn't certain. I was a virgin in the real world, one of the few |
| things I still had in common with the rest of civilized society. "In |
| principle, I guess. It just seems—a lot of effort for not as |
| much payoff, you know?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't I." She smiled. "Real fuckbuddies aren't |
| airbrushed. Got all these <I>needs</I> and <I>demands</I> that you |
| can't edit out. How can you blame anyone for saying <I>no thanks</I> |
| to all that, now there's a choice? You gotta wonder how our parents |
| ever stayed together sometimes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>You gotta wonder </I>why<I> they did</I>. I felt myself sinking |
| deeper into the chair, wondered again at this strange new sensation. |
| Chelsea had said the dopamine was tweaked. That was probably it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She leaned forward, not coy, not coquettish, not breaking eye contact |
| for an instant in the longwave gloom. I could smell the lemony tang |
| of pheromones and synthetics mingling on her skin. "But there |
| are advantages too, once you learn the moves," she said. "The |
| body's got a long memory. And you <I>do</I> realize that there's no |
| trickler under your left finger there, don't you, Siri?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked. My left arm was slightly extended, index finger touching |
| one of the trickle pads; and my right had mirrored the motion while I |
| wasn't watching, its own finger tapping uselessly on blank tabletop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I pulled it back. "Bit of a bilateral twitch," I admitted. |
| "The body creeps into symmetrical poses when I'm not looking."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I waited for a joke, or at least a raised eyebrow. Chelsea just |
| nodded and resumed her thread. "So if you're game for this, so |
| am I. I've never been entangled with a synthesist before."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jargonaut's fine. I'm not proud."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't you just always know just exactly what to say." She |
| cocked her head at me. "So, your name. What's it mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Relaxed. That was it. I felt <I>relaxed</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know. It's just a name." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, it's not good enough. If we're gonna to be swapping spit |
| for any length of time you've gotta get a name that <I>means</I> |
| something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And we were, I realized. Chelsea had decided while I wasn't looking. |
| I could have stopped her right there, told her what a bad idea this |
| was, apologized for any misunderstanding. But then there'd be |
| wounded looks and hurt feelings and guilt because after all, if I |
| wasn't interested why the hell had I even shown up?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She seemed nice. I didn't want to hurt her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Just for a while</I>, I told myself. <I>It'll be an experience</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think I'll call you Cygnus," Chelsea said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The swan?" I said. A bit precious, but it could have been |
| worse.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "Black hole. Cygnus X-1."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I furrowed my brow at her, but I knew exactly what she meant: a |
| dark, dense object that sucks up the light and destroys everything in |
| its path.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks a whole fucking lot. Why?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm not sure. Something dark about you." She shrugged, |
| and gave me a great toothy grin. "But it's not unattractive. |
| And let me give you a tweak or two, I bet you'd grow right out of |
| it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag admitted afterward, a bit sheepishly, that maybe I should have |
| read that as a warning sign. Live and learn.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Leaders |
| are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">and |
| no concept of the odds against them."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Robert |
| Jarvik</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Our scout fell towards orbit, watching Ben. We fell days behind, |
| watching the scout. And that was <I>all</I> we did: sit in <I>Theseus</I>' |
| belly while the system streamed telemetry to our inlays. Essential, |
| irreplaceable, mission-critical—we might as well have been |
| ballast during that first approach.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We passed Ben's Rayleigh limit. <I>Theseus</I> squinted at a meager |
| emission spectrum and saw a rogue halo element from Canis Major—a |
| dismembered remnant of some long-lost galaxy that had drifted into |
| ours and ended up as road kill, uncounted billions of years ago. We |
| were closing on something from outside the Milky Way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The probe arced down and in, drew close enough for false-color |
| enhance. Ben's surface brightened to a seething parfait of |
| high-contrast bands against a diamond-hard starscape. Something |
| twinkled there, faint sparkles on endless overcast. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Lightning?" James wondered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shook his head. "Meteorites. Must be a lot of rock in |
| the neighborhood."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wrong color," Sarasti said. He was not physically among |
| us—he was back in his tent, hardlined into the Captain—but |
| ConSensus put him anywhere on board he wanted to be.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Morphometrics scrolled across my inlays: mass, diameter, mean |
| density. Ben's day lasted seven hours twelve minutes. Diffuse but |
| massive accretion belt circling the equator, more torus than ring, |
| extending almost a half-million kilometers from the cloud-tops: the |
| pulverized corpses of moons perhaps, ground down to leftovers. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Meteorites." Szpindel grinned. "Told ya."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He seemed to be right; increasing proximity smeared many of those |
| pinpoint sparkles into bright ephemeral hyphens, scratching the |
| atmosphere. Closer to the poles, cloud bands flickered with dim, |
| intermittent flashes of electricity.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <a name="weakpeak">Weak</a> radio emission peaks at 31 and 400m. Outer atmosphere heavy with |
| methane and ammonia; lithium, water, carbon monoxide in abundance. |
| Ammonia hydrogen sulfide, alkali halide mixing locally in those torn |
| swirling clouds. Neutral alkalis in the upper layers. By now even |
| <I>Theseus</I> could pick those things out from a distance, but our |
| scout was close enough to see filigree. It no longer saw a disk. It |
| gazed down at a dark convex wall in seething layers of red and brown, |
| saw faint stains of anthracene and pyrene.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One of a myriad meteorite contrails scorched Ben's face directly |
| ahead; for a moment I thought I could even see the tiny dark speck at |
| its core, but sudden static scratched the feed. Bates cursed |
| softly. The image blurred, then steadied as the probe pitched its |
| voice higher up the spectrum. Unable to make itself heard above the |
| longwave din, now it spoke down a laser.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And still it stuttered. Keeping it aligned across a million |
| fluctuating kilometers should have posed no problem |
| at all; our respective trajectories were known parabolas, our |
| relative positions infinitely predictable at any time <I>t</I>. But |
| the meteorite's contrail jumped and skittered on the feed, as if the |
| beam were being repeatedly, infinitesimally knocked out of alignment. |
| Incandescent gas blurred its details; I doubted that even a |
| rock-steady image would have offered any sharp edges for a human eye |
| to hold on to. Still. There was something <I>wrong</I> about it |
| somehow, something about the tiny black dot at the core of that |
| fading brightness. Something that some primitive part of my mind |
| refused to accept as <I>natural</I>—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The image lurched again, and flashed to black, and didn't return.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probe's fried," Bates reported. "Spike there at the |
| end. Like it hit a Parker Spiral, but with a <I>really</I> tight |
| wind."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't need to call up subtitles. It was obvious in the set of her |
| face, the sudden creases between her eyebrows: she was talking about |
| a magnetic field.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's—" she began, and stopped as a number popped up |
| in ConSensus: <I>11.2 Tesla</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Holy shit</I>," Szpindel whispered. "Is that |
| right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked from the back of his throat and the back of the ship. |
| A moment later he served up an instant replay, those last few |
| seconds of telemetry zoomed and smoothed and contrast-enhanced from |
| visible light down to deep infrared. There was that same dark shard |
| cauled in flame, there was the contrail burning in its wake. Now it |
| dimmed as the object skipped off the denser atmosphere beneath and |
| regained altitude. Within moments the heat trace had faded entirely. |
| The thing that had burned at its center rose back into space, a |
| fading ember. A great conic scoop at its front end gaped like a |
| mouth. Stubby fins disfigured an ovoid abdomen.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ben lurched and went out all over again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Meteorites," Bates said dryly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The thing had left me with no sense of scale. It could have been an |
| insect or an asteroid. "How big?" I whispered, a |
| split-second before the answer appeared on my inlays: |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Four hundred meters along the major axis.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ben was safely distant in our sights once more, a dark dim disk |
| centered in <I>Theseus</I>'s forward viewfinder. But I remembered |
| the close-up: a twinkling orb of black-hearted fires; a face gashed |
| and pockmarked, endlessly wounded, endlessly healing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There'd been <I>thousands</I> of the things.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> shivered along her length. It was just a pulse of |
| decelerating thrust; but for that one moment, I imagined I knew how |
| she felt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We headed in and hedged our bets.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> weaned herself with a ninety-eight-second burn, edged |
| us into some vast arc that might, with a little effort, turn into an |
| orbit—or into a quick discreet flyby if the neighborhood turned |
| out to be a little too rough. The Icarus stream fell invisibly to |
| port, its unswerving energy lost to space-time. Our city-sized, |
| molecule-thick parasol wound down and packed itself away until the |
| next time the ship got thirsty. Antimatter stockpiles began dropping |
| immediately; this time we were alive to watch it happen. The dip was |
| infinitesimal, but there was something disquieting about the sudden |
| appearance of that minus sign on the display.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We could have retained the apron strings, left a buoy behind in the |
| telematter stream to bounce energy down the well after us. Susan |
| James wondered why we hadn't.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Too risky," Sarasti said, without elaboration.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel leaned in James' direction. "Why give 'em something |
| <I>else</I> to shoot at, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We sent more probes ahead, though, spat them out hard and fast and |
| too fuel-constrained for anything but flyby and self-destruct. They |
| couldn't take their eyes off the machines swinging around Big Ben. |
| <I>Theseus</I> stared her own unblinking stare, more distant though |
| more acute. But if those high divers even knew we were out there, |
| they ignored us completely. We tracked them across the closing |
| distance, watched them swoop and loop though a million parabolas at a |
| million angles. We never saw them collide—not with each other, |
| not with the cauldron of rock tumbling around Ben's equator. Every |
| perigee dipped briefly into atmosphere; there they burned, and |
| slowed, and accelerated back into space, their anterior scoops |
| glowing with residual heat. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates grabbed a ConSensus image, drew highlights and a conclusion |
| around the front end: "Scramjet."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We tracked nearly four hundred thousand in less than two days. That |
| appeared to be most of them; new sightings leveled off afterwards, |
| the cumulative curve flattening towards some theoretical asymptote. |
| Most of the orbits were close and fast, but Sarasti projected a |
| frequency distribution extending almost back to Pluto. We might stay |
| out here for years, and still catch the occasional new shovelnose |
| returning from its extended foray into the void. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The faster ones are pulling over fifty gees on the hairpin |
| turn," Szpindel pointed out. "Meat couldn't handle that. |
| I say they're unmanned."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Meat's reinforceable," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If it's got <I>that</I> much scaffolding you might as well stop |
| splitting hairs and call it a machine anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Surface morphometrics were absolutely uniform. Four hundred thousand |
| divers, every one identical. If there was an alpha male calling the |
| shots among the herd, it couldn't be distinguished on sight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One night—as such things were measured on board— I |
| followed a soft squeal of tortured electronics up to the observation |
| blister. Szpindel floated there, watching the skimmers. He'd closed |
| the clamshells, blocked off the stars and built a little analytical |
| nest in their place. Graphs and windows spilled across the inside of |
| the dome as though the virtual space in Szpindel's head was |
| insufficient to contain them. Tactical graphics lit him from all |
| sides, turned his body into a bright patchwork of flickering tattoos.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Illustrated Man. "Mind if I come in?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He grunted: <I>Yeah, but not enough to push it</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Inside the dome, the sound of heavy rainfall hissed and spat behind |
| the screeching that had led me here. "What <I>is</I> that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ben's magnetosphere." He didn't look back. "Nice, |
| eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Synthesists don't have opinions on the job; it keeps observer effects |
| to a minimum. This time I permitted myself a small breach. "The |
| static's nice. I could do without the screeching."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you kidding? That's the music of the spheres, commissar. |
| It's <I>beautiful</I>. Like old jazz."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I never got the hang of that either."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He shrugged and squelched the upper register, left the rain pattering |
| around us. His jiggling eyes fixed on some arcane graphic. "Want |
| a scoop for your notes?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sure."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There you go." Light reflected off his feedback glove, |
| iridescing like the wing of a dragonfly as he pointed: an absorption |
| spectrum, a looped time-series. Bright peaks surged and subsided, |
| surged and subsided across a fifteen-second timeframe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Subtitles only gave me wavelengths and Angstroms. "What is it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Diver farts. Those bastards are dumping complex organics into |
| the atmosphere."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How complex?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hard to tell, so far. Faint traces, and they dissipate like |
| <I>that</I>. But sugars and aminos at least. Maybe proteins. Maybe |
| more."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe life? Microbes?" An alien terraforming project...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Depends on how you define <I>life</I>, eh?" Szpindel said. |
| "Not even <I>Deinococcus</I> would last long down there. But |
| it's a big atmosphere. They better not be in any hurry if they're |
| reworking the whole thing by direct inoculation."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If they were, the job would go a lot faster with self-replicating |
| inoculates. "Sounds like life to me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sounds like agricultural aerosols, is what it sounds like. |
| Those fuckers are turning the whole damn gas ball into a rice paddy |
| bigger than Jupiter." He gave me a scary grin. "Something's |
| got a <I>beeeg</I> appetite, hmm? You gotta wonder if we aren't |
| gonna be a teeny bit outnumbered."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's findings were front and center at our next get-together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The vampire summed it up for us, visual aids dancing on the table: |
| "Von Neumann self-replicating r-selector. Seed washes up and |
| sprouts skimmers, skimmers harvest raw materials from the accretion |
| belt. Some perturbations in those orbits; belt's still unsettled."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Haven't seen any of the herd giving birth," Szpindel |
| remarked. "Any sign of a factory?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti shook his head. "Discarded, maybe. Decompiled. Or the |
| herd stops breeding at optimal N." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "These are only the bulldozers," Bates pointed out. |
| "There'll be tenants."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A <I>lot</I> of 'em, eh?" Szpindel added. "Outnumber |
| us by orders of mag."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James: "But they might not show up for centuries."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked. "Do these skimmers build Fireflies? |
| Burns-Caulfield?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was a rhetorical question. Szpindel answered anyway: "Don't |
| see how."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Something else does, then. Something already local."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody spoke for a moment. James' topology shifted and shuffled in |
| the silence; when she opened her mouth again, someone indefinably |
| <I>younger</I> was on top.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Their habitat isn't anything like ours, if they're building a |
| home way out here. That's hopeful."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle. The synesthete.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Proteins." Sarasti's eyes were unreadable behind the |
| visor. <I>Comparable biochemistries. They might eat us</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Whoever these beings are, they don't even live in <I>sunlight</I>. |
| No territorial overlap, no resource overlap, no basis for |
| conflict. There's no reason we shouldn't get along just fine."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "On the other hand," Szpindel said, "Technology |
| implies belligerence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle snorted softly. "According to a coterie of theoretical |
| historians who've never actually met an alien, yes. Maybe now we get |
| to prove them wrong." And in the next instant she was just |
| <I>gone</I>, her affect scattered like leaves in a dust-devil, and |
| Susan James was back in her place saying:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why don't we just <I>ask</I> them?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ask?" Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There are four hundred thousand machines out there. How do we |
| know they can't talk?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We'd have heard.," Szpindel said. "They're drones."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can't hurt to ping them, just to make sure."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There's no reason they should talk even if they <I>are </I>smart. |
| Language and intelligence aren't all that strongly correlated even |
| on Ear—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James rolled her eyes. "Why not <I>try</I>, at least? It's |
| what we're here for. It's what <I>I'm</I> here for. Just <I>send a |
| bloody signal</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| After a moment Bates picked up the ball. "Bad game theory, |
| Suze."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Game theory." She made it sound like a curse.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tit-for-tat's the best strategy. They pinged us, we pinged |
| back. Ball's in their court now; we send another signal, we may |
| give away too much."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know the rules, Amanda. They say if the other party never |
| takes the initiative again, we ignore each other for the rest of the |
| mission because game theory says you don't want to look <I>needy</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The rule only applies when you're going up against an unknown |
| player, " the Major explained. "We'll have more options |
| the more we learn."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James sighed. "It's just—you all seem to be going into |
| this <I>assuming</I> they'll be hostile. As if a simple hailing |
| signal is going to bring them down on us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shrugged. "It only makes sense to be cautious. I may be |
| a jarhead but I'm not eager to piss off <I>anything</I> that hops |
| between stars and terraforms superJovians for a living. I don't have |
| to remind anyone here that <I>Theseus</I> is no warship."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She'd said <I>anyone</I>; she'd meant <I>Sarasti</I>. And Sarasti, |
| focused on his own horizon, didn't answer. Not out loud, at least; |
| but his surfaces spoke in a different tongue entirely.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Not yet</I>, they said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates was right, by the way. <I>Theseus</I> was officially tricked |
| out for exploration, not combat. No doubt our masters would have |
| preferred to load her up with nukes and particle cannons as well as |
| her scientific payload, but not even a telemattered fuel stream can |
| change the laws of inertia. A weaponized prototype would have taken |
| longer to build; a more massive one, laden with heavy artillery, |
| would take longer to accelerate. Time, our masters had decided, was |
| of greater essence than armament. In a pinch our fabrication |
| facilities could build most anything we needed, given time. It might |
| take a while to build a particle-beam cannon from scratch, and we |
| might have to scavenge a local asteroid for the raw material, but we |
| could do it. Assuming our enemies would be willing to wait, in the |
| interests of fair play. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But what were the odds that even our best weapons would prove |
| effective against the intelligence that had pulled off the Firefall? |
| If the unknown was hostile, we were probably doomed no matter what we |
| did. The Unknown <I>was</I> technologically advanced—and there |
| were some who claimed that that made them hostile by definition. |
| <I>Technology Implies Belligerence</I>, they said. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I suppose I should explain that, now that it's completely irrelevant. |
| You've probably forgotten after all this time.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints |
| were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle |
| intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened |
| than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would |
| someday ascend. <I>Surely, </I>said the Optimists, <I> space travel |
| implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great |
| destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal |
| instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the |
| interstellar gulf.</I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before |
| graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The |
| Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and |
| prokaryotic slime. <I>The odds are just too low</I>, they insisted. |
| <I>Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too |
| many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even </I>one<I> Earth |
| exists; to hope for </I>many<I> is to abandon reason and embrace |
| religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years |
| old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here |
| by now? </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't |
| have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, |
| spacefaring extraterrestrials— <I>but if there </I>are<I> any</I>, |
| they said, <I>they're not just going to be smart. They're going to |
| be </I>mean.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human |
| history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies |
| grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't |
| merely <I>Human</I> history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave |
| to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as |
| readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue |
| was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was |
| what tools are <I>for</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the |
| universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, |
| they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. |
| Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never |
| thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why |
| invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food |
| is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force |
| change upon a world which poses no threat?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into |
| the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed |
| stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't |
| content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd |
| built cities in space.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled |
| lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—until |
| my own mother packed herself away like a larva in honeycomb, softened |
| by machinery, robbed of incentive by her own contentment. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It |
| only suggested that those who <I>had</I> stopped no longer struggled |
| for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the |
| best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still |
| the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with |
| sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those |
| environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural |
| disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered—or |
| adapted to— they lose their relevance. No, the only |
| environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought |
| back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced |
| their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. |
| Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an <I>intelligent</I> |
| one.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never |
| forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent |
| opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel |
| between the stars?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The argument was straightforward enough. It might even have been |
| enough to carry the Historians to victory—if such debates were |
| ever settled on the basic of logic, and if a bored population hadn't |
| already awarded the game to Fermi on points. But the Historian |
| paradigm was just too ugly, too <I>Darwinian</I>, for most people, |
| and besides, no one really cared any more. Not even the Cassidy |
| Survey's late-breaking discoveries changed much. So what if some |
| dirtball at Ursae Majoris Eridani had an oxygen atmosphere? It was |
| forty-three lightyears away, and it wasn't talking; and if you wanted |
| flying chandeliers and alien messiahs, you could build them to order |
| in Heaven. If you wanted testosterone and target practice you could |
| choose an afterlife chock-full of nasty alien monsters with really |
| bad aim. If the mere thought of an alien intelligence threatened |
| your worldview, you could explore a virtual galaxy of empty real |
| estate, ripe and waiting for any God-fearing earthly pilgrims who |
| chanced by.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was all there, just the other side of a fifteen-minute splice job |
| and a cervical socket. Why endure the cramped and smelly confines of |
| real-life space travel to go visit pond scum on Europa?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And so, inevitably, a fourth Tribe arose, a Heavenly host that |
| triumphed over all: the Tribe that Just Didn't Give A Shit. They |
| didn't know <I>what</I> to do when the Fireflies showed up.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So they sent us, and—in belated honor of the Historian |
| mantra—they sent along a warrior, just in case. It was |
| doubtful in the extreme that any child of Earth would be a match for |
| a race with interstellar technology, should they prove unfriendly. |
| Still, I could tell that Bates' presence was a comfort, to the Human |
| members of the crew at least. If you have to go up unarmed against |
| an angry T-rex with a four-digit IQ, it can't hurt to have a trained |
| combat specialist at your side.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At the very least, she might be able to fashion a pointy stick from |
| the branch of some convenient tree.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I swear, if the aliens end up eating the lot of us, we'll have |
| the Church of Game Theory to thank for it," Sascha said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She was grabbing a brick of couscous from the galley. I was there |
| for the caffeine. We were more or less alone; the rest of the crew |
| was strewn from dome to Fab.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Linguists don't use it?" I knew some that did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>We</I> don't." <I>And the others are hacks</I>. |
| "Thing about game theory is, it assumes rational self-interest |
| among the players. And people just aren't <I>rational.</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It used to assume that," I allowed. "These days they |
| factor in the social neurology."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Human</I> social neurology." She bit a corner off her |
| brick, spoke around a mouthful of semolina. "That's what game |
| theory's good for. Rational players, or human ones. And let me take |
| a wild stab here and wonder if either of those is gonna apply to |
| <I>that</I>." She waved her hand at some archetypal alien |
| lurking past the bulkhead.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's got its limitations," I admitted. "I guess you |
| use the tools you can lay your hands on."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha snorted. "So if you couldn't get your hands on a proper |
| set of blueprints, you'd base your dream home on a book of dirty |
| limericks."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe not." And then, a bit defensive in spite of myself, |
| I added, "I've found it useful, though. In areas you might not |
| expect it to be."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah? Name one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Birthdays," I said, and immediately wished I hadn't.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha stopped chewing. Something behind her eyes flickered, almost |
| <I>strobed</I>, as if her other selves were pricking up their ears.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Go on," she said, and I could feel the whole Gang |
| listening in.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's nothing, really. Just an example."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So. Tell us." Sascha cocked James' head at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged. No point making a big thing out of it. "Well, |
| according to game theory, you should never tell anyone when your |
| birthday is."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't follow."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's a lose-lose proposition. There's no winning strategy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you mean, strategy? It's a <I>birthday</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea had said exactly the same thing when I'd tried to explain it |
| to her. <I>Look</I>, I'd said, <I>say you tell everyone when it is |
| and nothing happens. It's kind of a slap in the face.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Or suppose they throw you a party</I>, Chelsea had replied.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Then you don't know whether they're doing it sincerely, or if your |
| earlier interaction just guilted them into observing an occasion |
| they'd rather have ignored. But if you </I>don't<I> tell anyone, and |
| nobody commemorates the event, there's no reason to feel badly |
| because after all, nobody </I>knew<I>. And if someone </I>does<I> |
| buy you a drink then you know it's sincere because nobody would go to |
| all the trouble of finding out when your birthday is— and then |
| celebrating it—if they didn't honestly like you.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of course, the Gang was more up to speed on such things. I didn't |
| have to explain it verbally: I could just grab a piece of ConSensus |
| and plot out the payoff matrix, <I>Tell/Don't Tell</I> along the |
| columns, <I>Celebrated/Not Celebrated</I> along the rows, the |
| unassailable black-and-white logic of cost and benefit in the squares |
| themselves. The math was irrefutable: the one winning strategy was |
| concealment. Only fools revealed their birthdays. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha looked at me. "You ever show this to anyone else?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sure. My girlfriend."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her eyebrows lifted. "<I>You</I> had a girlfriend? A real |
| one?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded. "Once."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I mean <I>after</I> you showed this to her."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, yes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Uh huh." Her eyes wandered back to the payoff matrix. |
| "Just curious, Siri. How did she react?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She didn't, really. Not at first. Then—well, she |
| laughed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Better woman than me." Sascha shook her head. "I'd |
| have dumped you on the spot."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My nightly constitutional up the spine: glorious dreamy flight along |
| a single degree of freedom. I sailed through hatches and corridors, |
| threw my arms wide and spun in the gentle cyclonic breezes of the |
| drum. Bates ran circles around me, bouncing her ball against bins |
| and bulkheads, stretching to field each curving rebound in the |
| torqued pseudograv. The toy ricocheted off a stairwell and out of |
| reach as I passed; the major's curses followed me through the |
| needle's eye from crypt to bridge.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I braked just short of the dome, stopped by the sound of quiet voices |
| from ahead.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of <I>course</I> they're beautiful," Szpindel murmured. |
| "They're <I>stars</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And I'm guessing I'm not your first choice to share the view," |
| James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're a close second. But I've got a date with Meesh."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She never mentioned it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She doesn't tell you everything. Ask her." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey, <I>this</I> body's taking its antilibs. Even if yours |
| isn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mind out of the gutter, Suze. Eros is only one kind of love, |
| eh? Ancient Greeks recognized four."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Riiight." Definitely not Susan, not any more. "Figures |
| you'd take your lead from a bunch of sodomites."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Fuck</I>, Sascha. All I'm asking is a few minutes alone |
| with Meesh before the whip starts cracking again..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My body too, Ike. You wanna pull your eyes over <I>my</I> |
| wool?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I just want to talk, eh? <I>Alone</I>. That too much to ask?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I heard Sascha take a breath. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I heard Michelle let it out. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sorry, kid. You know the Gang."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thank <I>God</I>. It's like some group inspection whenever I |
| come looking for face time." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I guess you're lucky they like you, then."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I still say you ought to stage a coup."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You could always move in with us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I heard the rustle of bodies in gentle contact. "How are you?" |
| Szpindel asked. "You okay?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Pretty good. I think I'm finally used to being alive again. |
| You?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey, I'm a spaz no matter how long I've been dead."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You get the job done."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why, <I>merci</I>. I try."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A small silence. <I>Theseus</I> hummed quietly to herself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mom was right," Michelle said. "They <I>are</I> |
| beautiful."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you see, when you look at them?" And then, |
| catching himself: "I mean—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're—prickly," Michelle told him. "When I |
| turn my head it's like bands of very fine needles rolling across my |
| skin in waves. But it doesn't hurt at all. It just tingles. It's |
| almost electric. It's nice."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wish I could feel it that way."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You've got the interface. Just patch a camera into your |
| parietal lobe instead of your visual cortex."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That'd just tell me how a <I>machine</I> feels vision, eh? |
| Still wouldn't know how <I>you</I> do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Isaac Szpindel. You're a romantic."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nah."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't <I>want</I> to know. You want to keep it |
| mysterious."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Already got more than enough <I>mystery</I> to deal with out |
| here, in case you hadn't noticed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, but we can't <I>do</I> anything about that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That'll change. We'll be working our asses off in no time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You think?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Count on it," Szpindel said. "So far we've just been |
| peeking from a distance, eh? Bet all kinds of interesting stuff |
| happens when we get in there and start poking with a stick."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe for you. There's got to be a biological <I>somewhere </I>in |
| the mix, with all those organics."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Damn right. And you'll be talking to 'em while I'm giving them |
| their physicals."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe not. I mean, Mom would never admit it in a million years |
| but you had a point about language. When you get right down to it, |
| it's a workaround. Like trying to describe dreams with smoke |
| signals. It's noble, it's maybe the most noble thing a body can do |
| but you can't turn a sunset into a string of grunts without losing |
| something. It's <I>limiting</I>. Maybe whatever's out here doesn't |
| even use it." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Bet they do, though."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Since when? You're the one who's always pointing out how |
| <I>inefficient</I> language is."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only when I'm trying to get under your skin. Your pants—whole |
| other thing." He laughed at his own joke. "Seriously, |
| what are they gonna to use instead, telepathy? I say you'll be up to |
| your elbows in hieroglyphics before you know it. And what's more, |
| you'll decode 'em in record time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're sweet, but I wonder. Half the time I can't even decode |
| <I>Jukka</I>." Michelle fell silent a moment. "He |
| actually kind of throws me sometimes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You and seven billion others."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. I know it's silly, but when he's not around there's a |
| part of me that can't stop wondering where he's hiding. And when |
| he's right there in front of me, I feel like <I>I</I> should be |
| hiding."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not his fault he creeps us out." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know. But it's hardly a big morale booster. What genius |
| came up with the idea of putting a vampire in charge?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Where else you going to put them, eh? You want to be the one |
| giving orders to <I>him</I>?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And it's not just the way he moves. It's the way he <I>talks</I>. |
| It's just <I>wrong</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You know he—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm not talking about the present-tense thing, or all the |
| glottals. He—well, you know how he talks. He's <I>terse</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's efficient." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's <I>artificial</I>, Isaac. He's smarter than all of us put |
| together, but sometimes he talks like he's got a fifty-word |
| vocabulary." A soft snort. "It's not like it'd kill him to |
| use an adverb once in a while."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah. But you say that because you're a linguist, and you can't |
| see why anyone wouldn't want to wallow in the sheer beauty of |
| <I>language</I>." Szpindel <I>harrumphed</I> with mock |
| pomposity. "Now me, I'm a biologist, so it makes perfect |
| sense."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Really. Then explain it to me, oh wise and powerful mutilator |
| of frogs."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Simple. Bloodsucker's a transient, not a resident."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What are—oh, those are killer whales, right? Whistle |
| dialects."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I said forget the <I>language</I>. Think about the lifestyle. |
| Residents are fish-eaters, eh? They hang out in big groups, don't |
| move around much, talk all the time." I heard a whisper of |
| motion, imagined Szpindel leaning in and laying a hand on Michelle's |
| arm. I imagined the sensors in his gloves telling him what she felt |
| like. "Transients, now—they eat <I>mammals</I>. Seals, |
| sea lions, <I>smart</I> prey. Smart enough to take cover when they |
| hear a fluke slap or a click train. So transients are <I>sneaky</I>, |
| eh? Hunt in small groups, range all over the place, keep their |
| mouths shut so nobody hears 'em coming."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And Jukka's a transient."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Man's instincts tell him to keep quiet around prey. Every time |
| he opens his mouth, every time he lets us <I>see</I> him, he's |
| fighting his own brain stem. Maybe we shouldn't be too harsh on the |
| ol' guy just because he's not the world's best motivational speaker, |
| eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He's fighting the urge to eat us every time we have a briefing? |
| That's reassuring."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel chuckled. "It's probably not that bad. I guess even |
| killer whales let their guard down after making a kill. Why sneak |
| around on a full stomach, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So he's <I>not</I> fighting his brain stem. He just isn't |
| hungry."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably a little of both. Brain stem never really <I>goes |
| away</I>, you know. But I'll tell you one thing." Some of the |
| playfulness ebbed from Szpindel's voice. "I've got no problem |
| if Sarasti wants to run the occasional briefing from his quarters. |
| But the moment we stop seeing him altogether? That's when you start |
| watching your back." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Looking back, I can finally admit it: I envied Szpindel his way with |
| the ladies. Spliced and diced, a gangly mass of tics and jitters |
| that could barely feel his own skin, somehow he managed to be—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Charming. That's the word. Charming.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| As a social necessity it was all but obsolete, fading into |
| irrelevance along with two-party nonvirtual sex pairing. But even |
| I'd tried one of those; and it would have been nice to have had |
| Szpindel's self-deprecating skill set to call on.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Especially when everything with Chelsea started falling apart.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I had my own style, of course. I tried to be charming in my own |
| peculiar way. Once, after one too many fights about <I>honesty </I>and |
| <I>emotional manipulation</I>, I'd started to think maybe a touch of |
| whimsy might smooth things over. I had come to suspect that Chelsea |
| just didn't understand sexual politics. Sure she'd edited brains for |
| a living, but maybe she'd just memorized all that circuitry without |
| giving any thought to how it had arisen in the first place, to the |
| ultimate rules of natural selection that had shaped it. Maybe she |
| honestly didn't know that we were evolutionary enemies, that <I>all</I> |
| relationships were doomed to failure. If I could slip that insight |
| into her head— if I could <I>charm</I> my way past her |
| defenses— maybe we'd be able to hold things together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I thought about it, and I came up with the perfect way to raise |
| her awareness. I wrote her a bedtime story, a disarming blend of |
| humor and affection, and I called it</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| The Book of<B> Oogenesis</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>In the beginning were the gametes. And though there was sex, lo, |
| there was no gender, and life was in balance.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And God said, "Let there be Sperm": and some seeds did |
| shrivel in size and grow cheap to make, and they did flood the |
| market.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And God said, "Let there be Eggs": and other seeds were |
| afflicted by a plague of Sperm. And yea, few of them bore fruit, for |
| Sperm brought no food for the zygote, and only the largest Eggs could |
| make up the shortfall. And these grew yet larger in the fullness of |
| time.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And God put the Eggs into a womb, and said, "Wait here: for |
| thy bulk has made thee unwieldy, and Sperm must seek thee out in thy |
| chambers. Henceforth shalt thou be fertilized internally." And |
| it was so.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And God said to the gametes, "The fruit of thy fusion may |
| abide in any place and take any shape. It may breathe air or water |
| or the sulphurous muck of hydrothermal vents. But do not forget my |
| one commandment unto you, which has not changed from the beginning of |
| time: spread thy genes."</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And thus did Sperm and Egg go into the world. And Sperm said, "I |
| am cheap and plentiful, and if sowed abundantly I will surely fulfill |
| God's plan. I shall forever seek out new mates and then abandon them |
| when they are with child, for there are many wombs and little time."</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>But Egg said, "Lo, the burden of procreation weighs heavily |
| upon me. I must carry flesh that is but half mine, gestate and feed |
| it even when it leaves my chamber" (for by now many of Egg's |
| bodies were warm of blood, and furry besides). "I can have but |
| few children, and must devote myself to those, and protect them at |
| every turn. And I will make Sperm help me, for he got me into this. |
| And though he doth struggle at my side, I shall not let him stray, |
| nor lie with my competitors."</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And Sperm liked this not. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And God smiled, for Its commandment had put Sperm and Egg at war |
| with each other, even unto the day they made themselves obsolete.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I brought her flowers one dusky Tuesday evening when the light was |
| perfect. I pointed out the irony of that romantic old tradition— |
| the severed genitalia of another species, offered as a precopulatory |
| bribe—and then I recited my story just as we were about to |
| fuck.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| To this day, I still don't know what went wrong.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">"The |
| glass ceiling is in <I>you</I>. The glass ceiling is <I>conscience</I>."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Jacob |
| Holtzbrinck, <I>The Keys to the Planet</I> </FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There were stories, before we left Earth, of a fourth wave: a fleet |
| of deep-space dreadnoughts running silent in our wake, should the |
| cannon fodder up front run into something nasty. Or, if the aliens |
| were friendly, an ambassadorial frigate full of politicians and CEOs |
| ready to elbow their way to the front of the line. Never mind that |
| Earth had no deep-space dreadnoughts or ambassadorial spaceships; |
| <I>Theseus</I> hadn't existed either, before Firefall. Nobody had |
| told us of any such such contingent, but you never show the Big |
| Picture to your front line. The less they know, the less they can |
| betray. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I still don't know if the fourth wave ever existed. I never saw any |
| evidence of one, for whatever that's worth. We might have left them |
| floundering back at Burns-Caulfield. Or maybe they followed us all |
| the way to Big Ben, crept just close enough to see what we were up |
| against, and turned tail before things got ugly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I wonder if that's what happened. I wonder if they made it back |
| home.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I look back now, and hope not.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A giant marshmallow kicked <I>Theseus</I> in the side. <I>Down</I> |
| swung like a pendulum. Across the drum Szpindel yelped as if |
| scalded; in the galley, cracking a bulb of hot coffee, I nearly |
| <I>was</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>This is it</I>, I thought. <I>We got too close. They're hitting |
| back.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What the—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A flicker on the party line as Bates linked from the bridge. "Main |
| drive just kicked in. We're changing course."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To what? Where? Whose orders?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mine," Sarasti said, appearing above us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody spoke. Drifting into the drum through the stern hatchway: |
| the sound of something <I>grinding</I>. I pinged <I>Theseus</I>' |
| resource-allocation stack. Fabrication was retooling itself for the |
| mass production of doped ceramics.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Radiation shielding. Solid stuff, bulky and primitive, not the |
| controlled magnetic fields we usually relied on.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang emerged sleepy-eyed from their tent, Sascha grumbling, "What |
| the <I>fuck</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Watch." Sarasti took hold of ConSensus and shook it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was a blizzard, not a briefing: gravity wells and orbital |
| trajectories, shear-stress simulations in thunderheads of ammonium |
| and hydrogen, stereoscopic planetscapes buried under filters ranging |
| from gamma to radio. I saw breakpoints and saddlepoints and unstable |
| equilibria. I saw fold catastrophes plotted in five dimensions. My |
| augments strained to rotate the information; my meaty half-brain |
| struggled to understand the bottom line.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something was hiding down there, in plain sight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ben's accretion belt still wasn't behaving. Its delinquency wasn't |
| obvious; Sarasti hadn't had to plot every pebble and mountain and |
| planetesimal to find the pattern, but he'd come close. And neither |
| he nor the conjoined intelligence he shared with the Captain had been |
| able to explain those trajectories as the mere aftermath of some past |
| disturbance. The dust wasn't just <I>settling</I>; some of it |
| marched downhill to the beat of something that even now reached out |
| from the cloud-tops and pulled debris from orbit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not all that debris seemed to hit. Ben's equatorial regions |
| flickered constantly with the light of meteorite impacts—much |
| fainter than the bright wakes of the skimmers, and gone in the wink |
| of an eye—but those frequency distributions didn't quite |
| account for all the rocks that had fallen. It was almost as though, |
| every now and then, some piece of incoming detritus simply vanished |
| into a parallel universe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Or got caught by something in <I>this</I> one. Something that |
| circled Ben's equator every forty hours, almost low enough to graze |
| the atmosphere. Something that didn't show up in visible light, or |
| infrared, or radar. Something that might have remained pure |
| hypothesis if a skimmer hadn't burned an incandescent trail across |
| the atmosphere <I>behind</I> it when <I>Theseus</I> happened to be |
| watching.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti threw that one dead center: a bright contrail streaking |
| diagonally across Ben's perpetual nightscape, stuttering partway a |
| degree or two to the left, stuttering back just before it passed from |
| sight. Freeze-frame showed a beam of light frozen solid, a segment |
| snapped from its midsection and jiggled just a hair out of alignment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A segment nine kilometers long.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's <I>cloaked</I>," Sascha said, impressed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not very well." Bates emerged from the forward hatch and |
| sailed spinward. "Pretty obvious refractory artefact." |
| She caught stairs halfway to the deck, used the torque of |
| spin-against-spam to flip upright and plant her feet on the steps. |
| "Why didn't we catch that before?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No backlight," Szpindel suggested.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not just the contrail. Look at the clouds." Sure |
| enough, Ben's cloudy backdrop showed the same subtle dislocation. |
| Bates stepped onto the deck and headed for the conference table. "We |
| should've seen this earlier."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The other probes see no such artefact," Sarasti said. |
| "<I>This </I>probe approaches from a wider angle. Twenty-seven |
| degrees."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wider angle to what?" Sascha said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To the line," Bates murmured. "Between us and them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was all there on tactical: <I>Theseus</I> fell inwards along an |
| obvious arc, but the probes we'd dispatched hadn't dicked around with |
| Hohmann transfers: they'd burned straight down, their courses barely |
| bending, all within a few degrees of the theoretical line connecting |
| Ben to <I>Theseus</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except this one. This one had come in wide, and seen the trickery.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The further from our bearing, the more obvious the |
| discontinuity," Sarasti intoned. "Think it's clearly |
| visible on any approach perpendicular to ours."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we're in a blind spot? We see it if we change course?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shook her head. "The blind spot's <I>moving</I>, Sascha. |
| It's—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Tracking</I> us." Sascha sucked breath between her |
| teeth. "<I>Motherfucker</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel twitched. "So what is it? Our skimmer factory?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The freeze-frame's pixels began to <I>crawl</I>. Something emerged, |
| granular and indistinct, from the turbulent swirls and curlicues of |
| Ben's atmosphere. There were curves, and spikes, and no smooth |
| edges; I couldn't tell how much of the shape was real, and how much a |
| fractal intrusion of underlying cloudscape. But the overall outline |
| was that of a torus, or perhaps a collection of smaller jagged things |
| piled together in a rough ring; and it was <I>big</I>. Those nine |
| klicks of displaced contrail had merely grazed the perimeter, cut |
| across an arc of forty or fifty degrees. This thing hiding in the |
| shadow of ten Jupiters was almost thirty kilometers from side to |
| side.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometime during Sarasti's executive summary we'd stopped |
| accellerating. <I>Down</I> was back where it belonged. We weren't, |
| though. Our hesitant maybe-maybe-not approach was a thing of the |
| past: we vectored straight in now, and damn the torpedoes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Er, that's thirty klicks across," Sascha pointed out. |
| "And it's <I>invisible</I>. Shouldn't we maybe be a little <I>more</I> |
| cautious now?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shrugged. "We could second-guess vampires, we wouldn't |
| <I>need</I> vampires, eh?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A new facet bloomed on the feed. Frequency histograms and harmonic |
| spectra erupted from flatline into shifting mountainscapes, a chorus |
| of visible light.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Modulated laser," Bates reported. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel looked up. "From <I>that</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates nodded. "Right after we blow its cover. Interesting |
| timing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Scary</I> timing," Szpindel said. "How'd it |
| <I>know</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We changed course. We're heading right for it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The lightscape played on, knocking at the window.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Whatever it is," Bates said, "it's talking to us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well then," remarked a welcome voice. "By all means |
| let's say hello."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan James was back in the driver's seat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was the only pure spectator.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They all performed what duties they could. Szpindel ran Sarasti's |
| sketchy silhouette through a series of filters, perchance to squeeze |
| a bit of biology from engineering. Bates compared morphometrics |
| between the cloaked artefact and the skimmers. Sarasti watched us |
| all from overhead and thought vampire thoughts deeper than anything |
| we could aspire to. But it was all just make-work. The Gang of Four |
| was on center stage, under the capable direction of Susan James.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She grabbed the nearest chair, sat, raised her hands as if cueing an |
| orchestra. Her fingers trembled in mid-air as she played virtual |
| icons; her lips and jaw twitched with subvocal commands. I tapped |
| her feed and saw text accreting around the alien signal:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Rorschach to vessel approaching 116<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>Az |
| -23<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>dec rel. Hello Theseus. |
| Rorschach to vessel approaching 116<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>Az |
| -23<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>dec rel. Hello Theseus. |
| Rorschach to vessel approachi</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She'd decoded the damn thing. Already. She was even answering it:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus to Rorschach. Hello Rorschach.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR><BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Hello Theseus. Welcome to the neighborhood.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She'd had less than three minutes. Or rather, <I>they'd</I> had less |
| than three minutes: four fully-conscious hub personalities and a few |
| dozen unconscious semiotic modules, all working in parallel, all |
| exquisitely carved from the same lump of gray matter. I could almost |
| see why someone would do such deliberate violence to their own minds, |
| if it resulted in this kind of performance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Up to now I had never fully convinced myself that even survival was |
| sufficient cause.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Request permission to approach</I>, the Gang sent. Simple and |
| straightforward: just facts and data, thank you, with as little room |
| as possible for ambiguity and misunderstanding. Fancy sentiments |
| like <I>we come in peace</I> could wait. A handshake was not the |
| time for cultural exchange.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You should stay away. Seriously. This place is dangerous.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That got some attention. Bates and Szpindel hesitated momentarily in |
| their own headspaces and glanced into James'.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Request information on danger</I>, the gang sent back. Still |
| keeping it concrete.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR><BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Too close and dangerous to you. low orbit complications.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; text-indent: 0.01in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Request information on low orbit complications.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR><BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Lethal environment. Rocks and rads. You're welcome. I can take it |
| but we're like that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.01in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We are aware of the rocks in low orbit. We are equipped to deal |
| with radiation. Request information on other hazards.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I dug under the transcript to the channel it fed from. <I>Theseus</I> |
| had turned part of the incoming beam into a sound wave, according to |
| the color code. Vocal communication, then. They <I>spoke</I>. |
| Waiting behind that icon were the raw sounds of an alien language.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of course I couldn't resist.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anytime between friends, right? Are you here for the |
| celebration?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| English. The voice was human, male. <I>Old</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We are here to explore," replied the Gang, although <I>their</I> |
| voice was pure <I>Theseus</I>. "Request dialog with agents who |
| sent objects into near-solar space."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "First contact. Sounds like something to celebrate."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I double-checked the source. No, this wasn't a translation; this was |
| the actual unprocessed signal coming from—<I>Rorschach</I>, it |
| had called itself. Part of the signal, anyway; there were other |
| elements, nonacoustic ones, encoded in the beam.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I browsed them while James said, "Request information about your |
| celebration": standard ship-to-ship handshaking protocols.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're interested." The voice was stronger now, younger.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You are?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes," the Gang repeated patiently.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You are?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The slightest hesitation. "This is <I>Theseus</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know that, baseline." In Mandarin, now. "Who |
| are <I>you</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No obvious change in the harmonics. Somehow, though, the voice |
| seemed to have acquired an edge.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "This is Susan James. I am a—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You wouldn't be happy here, Susan. Fetishistic religious |
| beliefs involved. There are dangerous observances."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James chewed her lip.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Request clarification. Are we in danger from these |
| observances?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You certainly could be."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Request clarification. Is it the observances that are |
| dangerous, or the low-orbit environment?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The environment <I>of</I> the disturbances. You should pay |
| attention, Susan. Inattention connotes indifference," <I>Rorschach</I> |
| said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Or disrespect," it added after a moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We had four hours before Ben got in the way. Four hours of |
| uninterrupted nonstop communication made vastly easier than anyone |
| had expected. It spoke our language, after all. Repeatedly it |
| expressed polite concern for our welfare. And yet, for all its |
| facility with Human speech it told us very little. For four hours it |
| managed to avoid giving a straight answer on any subject beyond the |
| extreme inadvisability of closer contact, and by the time it fell |
| into eclipse we still didn't know why.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti dropped onto the deck halfway through the exchange, his feet |
| never touching the stairs. He reached out and grabbed a railing to |
| steady himself on landing, and staggered only briefly. If I'd tried |
| that I'd have ended up bouncing along the deck like a pebble in a |
| cement mixer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He stood still as stone for the rest of the session, face motionless, |
| eyes hidden behind his onyx visor. When <I>Rorschach</I>'s signal |
| faded in midsentence he assembled us around the Commons table with a |
| gesture.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It talks," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James nodded. "It doesn't say much, except for asking us to keep |
| our distance. So far the voice has manifested as adult male, |
| although the apparent age changed a few times."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd heard all that. "Structure?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The ship-to-ship protocols are perfect. Its vocabulary is far |
| greater than you could derive from standard nav chatter between a few |
| ships, so they've been listening to all our insystem traffic—I'd |
| say for several years at least. On the other hand, the vocabulary |
| <I>doesn't</I> have anywhere near the range you'd get by monitoring |
| entertainment multimede, so they probably arrived after the Broadcast |
| Age."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How well do they use the vocabulary they have?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're using phrase-structure grammar, long-distance |
| dependencies. FLN recursion, at least four levels deep and I see no |
| reason why it won't go deeper with continued contact. They're not |
| parrots, Jukka. They know the rules. That name, for example—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I>," Bates murmered, knuckles cracking as |
| she squeezed her pet ball. "Interesting choice."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I checked the registry. There's an I-CAN freighter called |
| <I>Rorschach</I> on the Martian Loop. Whoever we're talking to must |
| regard their own platform the way we'd regard a ship, and picked one |
| of our names to fit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel dropped into the chair beside me, fresh from a galley run. |
| A bulb of coffee glistened like gelatin in his hand. "<I>That</I> |
| name, out of all the ships in the innersys? Seems way too symbolic |
| for a random choice."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think it was random. Unusual ship names provoke |
| comment; <I>Rorschach</I>'s pilot goes ship-to-ship with some other |
| vessel, the other vessel comes back with <I>oh Grandma, what an |
| unusual name you have</I>, <I>Rorschach</I> replies with some |
| off-the-cuff comment about nomenclatural origins and it all goes out |
| in the EM. Someone listening to all that chatter not only figures |
| out the name and the thing it applies to, but can get some sense of |
| meaning from the context. Our alien friends probably eavesdropped on |
| half the registry and deduced that <I>Rorschach</I> would be a better |
| tag for something unfamiliar than, say, the<I> SS Jaymie Matthews</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Territorial <I>and</I> smart." Szpindel grimaced, |
| conjuring a mug from beneath his chair. "Wonderful."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shrugged. "Territorial, maybe. Not necessarily |
| aggressive. In fact, I wonder if they could hurt us even if they |
| wanted to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't," Szpindel said. "Those skimmers—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The major waved a dismissive hand. "Big ships turn slowly. If |
| they were setting up to snooker us we'd see it well in advance." |
| She looked around the table. "Look, am I the only one who |
| finds this odd? An interstellar technology that redecorates |
| superJovians and lines up meteoroids like elephants on parade, and |
| they were <I>hiding</I>? From <I>us</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Unless there's someone else out here," James suggested |
| uneasily.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shook her head. "The cloak was directional. It was aimed |
| at us and no one else."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And even we saw through it," Szpindel added. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Exactly. So they go to Plan B, which so far amounts to nothing |
| but bluster and vague warnings. I'm just saying, they're not <I>acting</I> |
| like giants. <I>Rorschach</I>'s behavior feels—improvised. I |
| don't think they expected us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "'Course not. Burns-Caulfield was—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think they expected us <I>yet</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Um," Szpindel said, digesting it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The major ran one hand over her naked scalp. "Why would they |
| expect us to just <I>give up</I> after we learned we'd been sniped? |
| Of course we'd look elsewhere. Burns-Caulfield could only have been |
| intended as a delaying action; if I was them, I'd plan on us getting |
| out here eventually. But I think they miscalculated somehow. We got |
| out here sooner than they expected and caught them with their pants |
| down."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel split the bulb and emptied it into his mug. "Pretty |
| large miscalculation for something so smart, eh?" A hologram |
| bloomed on contact with the steaming liquid, glowing in soft |
| commemoration of the Gaza Glasslands. The scent of plasticised |
| coffee flooded the Commons. "Especially after they'd surveilled |
| us down to the square meter," he added.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And what did they see? I-CANNs. Solar sails. Ships that take |
| years to reach the Kuiper, and don't have the reserves to go anywhere |
| else afterwards. Telematter didn't exist beyond Boeing's simulators |
| and a half-dozen protypes back then. Easy to miss. They must've |
| figured one decoy would buy them all the time they needed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To do what?" James wondered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Whatever it is," Bates said, "We're ringside."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel raised his mug with an infirm hand and sipped. The coffee |
| trembled in its prison, the surface wobbling and blobbing in the |
| drum's half-hearted gravity. James pursed her lips in faint |
| disapproval. Open-topped containers for liquids were technically |
| <I>verboten</I> in variable-gravity environments, even for people |
| without Szpindel's dexterity issues.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So they're bluffing," Szpindel said at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates nodded. "That's my guess. <I>Rorschach</I>'s still under |
| construction. We could be dealing with an automated system of some |
| kind."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we can ignore the keep-off-the-grass signs, eh? Walk right |
| in."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We can afford to bide our time. We can afford to not push it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah. So even though we could maybe handle it now, you want to |
| wait until it graduates from <I>covert</I> to <I>invulnerable</I>." |
| Szpindel shuddered, set down his coffee. "Where'd you get your |
| military training again? Sporting Chance Academy?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates ignored the jibe. "The fact that <I>Rorschach</I>'s still |
| growing may be the best reason to leave it alone for a while. We |
| don't have any idea what the—mature, I guess—what the |
| mature form of this artefact might be. Sure, it hid. Lots of |
| animals take cover from predators without <I>being</I> predators, |
| especially young ones. Sure, it's—evasive. Doesn't give us |
| the answers we want. But maybe it doesn't <I>know</I> them, did you |
| consider that? How much luck would you have interrogating a Human |
| embryo? Adult could be a whole different animal."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Adult could put our asses through a meatgrinder."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So could the <I>embryo</I> for all we know." Bates rolled |
| her eyes. "Jesus, Isaac, <I>you're</I> the biologist. I |
| shouldn't have to tell you how many shy reclusive critters pack a |
| punch when they're cornered. Porcupine doesn't want any trouble, but |
| he'll still give you a faceful of quills if you ignore the warning."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel said nothing. He slid his coffee sideways along the concave |
| tabletop, to the very limit of his reach. The liquid sat there in |
| its mug, a dark circle perfectly parallel to the rim but canted |
| slightly towards us. I even thought I could make out the merest |
| convexity in the surface itself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel smiled faintly at the effect.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James cleared her throat. "Not to downplay your concerns, |
| Isaac, but we've hardly exhausted the diplomatic route. And at least |
| it's willing to talk, even if it's not as forthcoming as we'd like."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sure it talks," Szpindel said, eyes still on the leaning |
| mug. "Not like us." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, no. There's some—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not just slippery, it's downright <I>dyslexic</I> |
| sometimes, you noticed? And it mixes up its pronouns."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Given that it picked up the language entirely via passive |
| eavesdropping, it's remarkably fluent. In fact, from what I can tell |
| they're more efficient at processing speech than we are."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Gotta be efficient at a language if you're going to be so |
| <I>evasive</I> in it, eh?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If they were human I might agree with you," James replied. |
| "But what appears to us as evasion or deceit could just as |
| easily be explained by a reliance on smaller conceptual units."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Conceptual units?" Bates, I was beginning to realize, |
| never pulled up a subtitle if she could help it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James nodded. "Like processing a line of text word by word, |
| instead of looking at complete phrases. The smaller the units, the |
| faster they can be reconfigured; it gives you very fast semantic |
| reflexes. The down side is that it's difficult to maintain the same |
| level of logical consistency, since the patterns within the larger |
| structure are more likely to get shuffled."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Whoa</I>." Szpindel straightened, all thoughts of |
| liquids and centipetal force forgotten.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "All I'm saying is, we aren't necessarily dealing with |
| deliberate deception here. An entity who parses information at one |
| scale might not be aware of inconsistencies on another; it might not |
| even have conscious access to that level."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's not all you're saying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Isaac, you can't apply Human norms to a—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I <I>wondered</I> what you were up to." Szpindel dove |
| into the transcripts. A moment later he dredged up an excerpt:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Request information on environments you consider lethal. Request |
| information on your response to the prospect of imminent exposure to |
| lethal environments.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in; text-indent: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0.17in; font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Glad to comply. But your lethal is different from us. there are many |
| migrating circumstances.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You were <I>testing</I> it!" Szpindel crowed. He smacked |
| his lips; his jaw ticced. You were looking for an emotional |
| response!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was just a thought. It didn't prove anything."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Was there a difference? In the response time?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James hesitated, then shook her head. "But it was a stupid |
| idea. There are so many variables, we have no idea how they—I |
| mean, they're <I>alien</I>..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The pathology's classic."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What pathology?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't mean anything except that they're different from the |
| Human baseline," James insisted. "Which is not something |
| <I>anyone</I> here can look down their nose about."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried again: "What pathology?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James shook her head. Szpindel filled me in: "There's a |
| syndrome you might have heard about, eh? Fast talkers, no |
| conscience, tend to malapropism and self-contradiction. No emotional |
| affect."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're not talking about human beings here," James said |
| again, softly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But if we were," Szpindel added, "we might call |
| <I>Rorschach</I> a clinical sociopath."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti had said nothing during this entire exchange. Now, with the |
| word hanging out in the open, I noticed that nobody else would look |
| at him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We all knew that Jukka Sarasti was a sociopath, of course. Most of |
| us just didn't mention it in polite company.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel was never that polite. Or maybe it was just that he seemed |
| to almost <I>understand</I> Sarasti; he could look behind the monster |
| and regard the <I>organism</I>, no less a product of natural |
| selection for all the human flesh it had devoured in eons past. That |
| perspective calmed him, somehow. He could watch Sarasti watching |
| him, and not flinch.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch," he said once, |
| back in training.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Some would have thought that absurd. This man, so massively |
| interfaced with machinery that his own motor skills had degraded for |
| want of proper care and feeding; this man who heard x-rays and saw in |
| shades of ultrasound, so corrupted by retrofits he could no longer |
| even feel his own fingertips without assistance—this man could |
| pity <I>anyone</I> else, let alone an infra-eyed predator built to |
| murder without the slightest twitch of remorse?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Empathy for sociopaths isn't common," I remarked. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe it should be. We, at least—" he waved an arm; |
| some remote-linked sensor cluster across the simulator whirred and |
| torqued reflexively— "<I>chose</I> the add-ons. Vampires |
| <I>had</I> to be sociopaths. They're too much like their own prey—a |
| lot of taxonomists don't even consider them a subspecies, you know |
| that? Never diverged far enough for complete reproductive isolation. |
| So maybe they're more syndrome than race. Just a bunch of obligate |
| cannibals with a consistent set of deformities."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And how does that make—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If the only thing you can eat is your own kind, empathy is |
| gonna be the <I>first</I> thing that goes. Psychopathy's no disorder |
| in <I>those</I> shoes, eh? Just a survival strategy. But they still |
| make our skin crawl, so we—chain 'em up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You think we should've repaired the Crucifix glitch?" |
| Everyone knew why we hadn't. Only a fool would resurrect a monster |
| without safeguards in place. Vampires came with theirs built in: |
| without his antiEuclideans Sarasti would go <I>grand mal</I> the |
| first time he caught close sight of a four-panel window frame.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Szpindel was shaking his head. "We couldn't have fixed it. |
| Or we <I>could</I> have," he amended, "but the glitch is in |
| the visual cortex, eh? Linked to their omnisavantism. You fix it, |
| you disable their pattern-matching skills, and then what's the point |
| in even bringing them back?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I didn't know that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, that's the official story." He fell silent a |
| moment, cracked a crooked grin. "Then again, we didn't have any |
| trouble fixing the protocadherin pathways when it suited us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I subtitled. Context-sensitive, ConSensus served up <I>protocadherin |
| γ-Y</I>: the magical hominid brain protein that vampires had |
| never been able to synthesize. The reason they hadn't just switched |
| to zebras or warthogs once denied Human prey, why our discovery of |
| the terrible secret of the Right Angle had spelled their doom. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway, I just think he's—cut off." A nervous tic |
| tugged at the corner of Szpindel's mouth. "Lone wolf, nothing |
| but sheep for company. Wouldn't you feel lonely?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They don't <I>like</I> company," I reminded him. You |
| didn't put vampires of the same sex together, not unless you were |
| taking bets on a bloodbath. They were solitary hunters and <I>very |
| </I>territorial. With a minimum viable pred-prey ratio of one to |
| ten—and human prey spread so sparsely across the Pleistocene |
| landscape—the biggest threat to their survival had been |
| competition from their own kind. Natural selection had never taught |
| them to play nicely together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That didn't cut any ice with Szpindel, though. "Doesn't mean he |
| can't be lonely," he insisted.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just means he can't fix it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"They |
| know the music but not the words." </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| — <FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Hare, |
| <I>Without Conscience</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We did it with mirrors, great round parabolic things, each impossibly |
| thin and three times as high as a man. <I>Theseus</I> rolled them up |
| and bolted them to firecrackers stuffed with precious antimatter from |
| our dwindling stockpiles. With twelve hours to spare she flung them |
| like confetti along precise ballistic trajectories, and when they |
| were safely distant she set them alight. They pinwheeled off every |
| which way, gamma sleeting in their wake until they burned dry. Then |
| they coasted, unfurling mercurial insect wings across the void.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In the greater distance, four hundred thousand alien machines looped |
| and burned and took no obvious notice.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I> fell around Ben barely fifteen hundred kilometers |
| from atmosphere, a fast endless circle that took just under forty |
| hours to complete. By the time it didn't return to our sight, the |
| mirrors were all outside the zone of total blindness. A closeup of |
| Ben's equatorial edge floated in ConSensus. Mirror icons sparkled |
| around it like an exploding schematic, like the disconnected facets |
| of some great expanding compound eye. None had brakes. Whatever |
| high ground the mirrors held, they wouldn't hold it for long.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A mirage wavered stage left, a tiny spot of swirling chaos perhaps |
| half the size of a fingernail held at arms-length. It told us |
| nothing, it was pure heat-shimmer—but light bounced towards us |
| from dozens of distant relayers, and while each saw scarcely more |
| than our last probe had— a patch of dark clouds set slightly |
| awry by some invisible prism— each of those views refracted |
| <I>differently</I>. The Captain sieved flashes from the heavens and |
| stitched them into a composite view.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Details emerged.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| First a faint sliver of shadow, a tiny dimple all but lost in the |
| seething equatorial cloud bands. It had just barely rotated into |
| view around the edge of the disk— a rock in the stream perhaps, |
| an invisible finger stuck in the clouds, turbulence and shear stress |
| shredding the boundary layers to either side.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel squinted. "Plage effect." Subtitles said he was |
| talking about a kind of sunspot, a knot in Ben's magnetic field.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Higher," James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something floated above that dimple in the clouds, the way a |
| ground-effect ocean-liner floats above the depression it pushes into |
| the water's surface. I zoomed: next to an Oasa subdwarf with ten |
| times the mass of Jupiter, <I>Rorschach</I> was tiny. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Next to <I>Theseus</I>, it was a colossus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not just a torus but a <I>tangle</I>, a city-sized chaos of spun |
| glass, loops and bridges and attenuate spires. The surface texture |
| was pure artifice, of course; ConSensus merely giftwrapped the enigma |
| in refracted background. Still. In some dark, haunting way, it was |
| almost beautiful. A nest of obsidian snakes and smoky crystal |
| spines. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="font-weight: medium; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's talking again," James reported.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Talk back," Sarasti said, and abandoned us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So she did: and while the Gang spoke with the artefact, the others |
| spied upon it. Their vision failed over time—mirrors fell away |
| along their respective vectors, lines-of-sight degraded with each |
| passing second—but ConSensus filled with things learned in the |
| meantime. <I>Rorschach</I> massed 1.8<SUP>.</SUP>10<SUP>10</SUP> kg |
| within a total volume of 2.3<SUP>.</SUP>10<SUP>8</SUP> cubic meters. |
| Its magnetic field, judging by radio squeals and its Plage Effect, |
| was thousands of times stronger than the sun's. Astonishingly, parts |
| of the composite image were clear enough to discern fine spiral |
| grooves twined around the structure. ("Fibonacci sequence," |
| Szpindel reported, one jiggling eye fixing me for a moment. "At |
| least they're not <I>completely</I> alien.") Spheroid |
| protuberances disfigured the tips of at least three of <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| innumerable spines; the grooves were more widely spaced in those |
| areas, like skin grown tight and swollen with infection. Just before |
| one vital mirror sailed out of range it glimpsed another spine, split |
| a third of the way along its length. Torn material floated flaccid |
| and unmoving in vacuum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Please," Bates said softly. "Tell me that's not what |
| it looks like."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel grinned. "Sporangium? Seed pod? Why not?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I> may have been reproducing but beyond a doubt it was |
| <I>growing</I>, fed by a steady trickle of infalling debris from |
| Ben's accretion belt. We were close enough now to get a clear view |
| of that procession: rocks and mountains and pebbles fell like |
| sediment swirling around a drain. Particles that collided with the |
| artefact simply <I>stuck</I>; <I>Rorschach</I> engulfed prey like |
| some vast metastatic amoeba. The acquired mass was apparently |
| processed internally and shunted to apical growth zones; judging by |
| infinitesimal changes in the artefact's allometry, it grew from the |
| tips of its branches.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The procession never stopped. <I>Rorschach</I> was insatiable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was a strange attractor in the interstellar gulf; the paths along |
| which the rocks fell was precisely and utterly chaotic. It was as |
| though some Keplerian Black Belt had set up the whole system like an |
| astronomical wind-up toy, kicked everything into motion, and let |
| inertia do the rest.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Didn't think that was possible," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shrugged. "Hey, chaotic trajectories are just as |
| deterministic as any other kind."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That doesn't mean you can even <I>predict</I> them, let along |
| set them up like that." Luminous intel reflected off the |
| major's bald head. "You'd have to know the starting conditions |
| of a million different variables to ten decimal places. Literally."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yup."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Vampires</I> can't even do that. Quanticle computers can't |
| do that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shrugged like a marionette.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| All the while the Gang had been slipping in and out of character, |
| dancing with some unseen partner that—despite their best |
| efforts— told us little beyond endless permutations of <I>You |
| really wouldn't like it here</I>. Any interrogative it answered with |
| another— yet somehow it always left the sense of questions |
| answered. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.8in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did you send the Fireflies?" Sascha asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We send many things many places," <I>Rorschach</I> |
| replied. "What do their specs show?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We do not know their specifications. The Fireflies burned up |
| over Earth."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then shouldn't you be looking there? When our kids fly, |
| they're on their own."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha muted the channel. "You know who we're talking to? |
| Jesus of fucking <I>Nazareth</I>, that's who."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel looked at Bates. Bates shrugged, palms up.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You didn't get it?" Sascha shook her head. "That |
| last exchange was the informational equivalent of <I>Should we |
| render taxes unto Caesar</I>. Beat for beat."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks for casting us as the Pharisees," Szpindel |
| grumbled.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey, if the Jew fits..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel rolled his eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was when I first noticed it: a tiny imperfection on Sascha's |
| topology, a flyspeck of doubt marring one of her facets. "We're |
| not getting anywhere," she said. "Let's try a side door." |
| She winked out: Michelle reopened the outgoing line. "<I>Theseus</I> |
| to <I>Rorschach</I>. Open to requests for information."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Cultural exchange," <I>Rorschach</I> said. "That |
| works for me." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates's brow furrowed. "Is that wise?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If it's not inclined to give information, maybe it would rather |
| get some. And we could learn a great deal from the kind of questions |
| it asks."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tell us about home," <I>Rorschach</I> said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha resurfaced just long enough to say "Relax, Major. Nobody |
| said we had to give it the right answers."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The stain on the Gang's topology had flickered when Michelle took |
| over, but it hadn't disappeared. It grew slightly as Michelle |
| described some hypothetical home town in careful terms that mentioned |
| no object smaller than a meter across. (ConSensus confirmed my |
| guess: the hypothetical limit of Firefly eyesight.) When Cruncher |
| took a rare turn at the helm— |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We don't all of us have parents or cousins. Some never did. |
| Some come from vats."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I see. That's sad. Vats sounds so dehumanising."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —the stain darkened and spread across his surface like an oil |
| slick. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Takes too much on faith," Susan said a few moments later. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time Sascha had cycled back into Michelle it was more than |
| doubt, stronger than suspicion; it had become an <I>insight</I>, a |
| dark little meme infecting each of that body's minds in turn. The |
| Gang was on the trail of something. They still weren't sure what.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tell me more about your cousins," <I>Rorschach</I> sent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Our cousins lie about the family tree," Sascha replied, |
| "with nieces and nephews and Neandertals. We do not like |
| annoying cousins."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We'd like to know about this tree."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha muted the channel and gave us a look that said <I>Could it </I>be<I> |
| any more obvious</I>? "It <I>couldn't</I> have parsed that. |
| There were three linguistic ambiguities in there. It just ignored |
| them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, it asked for clarification," Bates pointed out. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It asked a follow-up question. Different thing entirely."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates was still out of the loop. Szpindel was starting to get it, |
| though.. .</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Subtle motion drew my eye. Sarasti was back, floating above the |
| bright topography on the table. The light show squirmed across his |
| visor as he moved his head. I could feel his eyes behind it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And something else, behind <I>him</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't tell what it was. I could point to nothing but a vague |
| sense of something <I>out of place</I>,<I> </I>somewhere in the |
| background. Something over on the far side of the drum wasn't quite |
| right. No, that wasn't it; something <I>nearer</I>, something amiss |
| somewhere along the drum's axis. But there was nothing there, |
| nothing I could see—just the naked pipes and conduits of the |
| spinal bundle, threading through empty space, and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And suddenly, whatever had been wrong was right again. That was what |
| finally locked my focus: the evaporation of some anomaly, a |
| reversion to normalcy that caught my eye like a flicker of motion. I |
| could see the exact spot along the bundle where the change had |
| occured. There was nothing out of place there now—but there |
| <I>had</I> been. It was in my head, barely subliminal, an <I>itch</I> |
| so close to the surface that I knew I could bring it back if I just |
| <I>concentrated.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha was talking to some alien artefact at the end of a laser beam. |
| She was going on about familial relationships, both evolutionary and |
| domestic: Neandertal and Cro Magnon and mother's cousins twice |
| removed. She'd been doing it for hours now and she had hours yet to |
| go but right now her chatter was distracting me. I tried to block |
| her out and concentrate on the half-perceived image teasing my |
| memory. I'd <I>seen</I> something there, just a moment ago. One of |
| the conduits had had—yes, too many joints on one of the pipes. |
| Something that should have been straight and smooth but was somehow |
| articulated instead. But not <I>one</I> of the pipes, I remembered: |
| an <I>extra</I> pipe, an extra <I>something</I> anyway, something—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Boney</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was crazy. There was nothing there. We were half a light year |
| from home talking to unseen aliens about family reunions, and my eyes |
| were playing tricks on me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Have to talk to Szpindel about that, if it happened again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A lull in the background chatter brought me back. Sascha had stopped |
| talking. Darkened facets hung around her like a thundercloud. I |
| pulled back the last thing she had sent: "We usually find our |
| nephews with telescopes. They are hard as Hobblinites."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| More calculated ambiguity. And <I>Hobblinites</I> wasn't even a |
| <I>word</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imminent decisions reflected in her eyes. Sascha was poised at the |
| edge of a precipice, gauging the depth of dark waters below.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You haven't mentioned your father at all," <I>Rorschach</I> |
| remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's true, <I>Rorschach,</I>" Sascha admitted softly, |
| taking a breath— |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And stepping forward.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So why don't you just <I>suck my big fat hairy dick</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The drum fell instantly silent. Bates and Szpindel stared, |
| open-mouthed. Sascha killed the channel and turned to face us, |
| grinning so widely I thought the top of her head would fall off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sascha," Bates breathed. "Are you <I>crazy</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what if I am? Doesn't matter to that thing. It doesn't |
| have a <I>clue</I> what I'm saying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't even have a clue what it's saying <I>back</I>," |
| she added.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wait a minute. You said—<I>Susan</I> said they weren't |
| parrots. They knew the rules."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And there Susan was, melting to the fore: "I did, and they do. |
| But pattern-matching doesn't equal comprehension."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shook her head. "You're saying whatever we're talking |
| to—it's not even intelligent?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, it could be intelligent, certainly. But we're not <I>talking</I> |
| to it in any meaningful sense."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what is it? Voicemail?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Actually," Szpindel said slowly, "I think they call |
| it a <I>Chinese Room</I>..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>About bloody time</I>, I thought.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I knew all about Chinese Rooms. I was one. I didn't even keep it a |
| secret, I told anyone who was interested enough to ask.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In hindsight, sometimes that was a mistake.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How can you possibly tell the rest of us what your bleeding |
| edge is up to if you don't understand it yourself?" Chelsea |
| demanded back when things were good between us. Before she got to |
| know me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged. "It's not my <I>job</I> to understand them. If I |
| could, they wouldn't be very bleeding-edge in the first place. I'm |
| just a, you know, a conduit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, but how can you translate something if you <I>don't</I> |
| understand it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A common cry, outside the field. People simply can't accept that |
| patterns carry their own intelligence, quite apart from the semantic |
| content that clings to their surfaces; if you manipulate the topology |
| correctly, that content just—comes along for the ride.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You ever hear of the Chinese Room?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "Only vaguely. Really old, right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hundred years at least. It's a fallacy really, it's an |
| argument that supposedly puts the lie to Turing tests. You stick |
| some guy in a closed room. Sheets with strange squiggles come in |
| through a slot in the wall. He's got access to this huge database of |
| squiggles just like it, and a bunch of rules to tell him how to put |
| those squiggles together."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Grammar," Chelsea said. "Syntax."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded. "The point is, though, he doesn't have any idea what |
| the squiggles <I>are</I>, or what information they might contain. He |
| only knows that when he encounters squiggle <I>delta</I>, say, he's |
| supposed to extract the fifth and sixth squiggles from file <I>theta</I> |
| and put them together with another squiggle from <I>gamma</I>. So he |
| builds this response string, puts it on the sheet, slides it back out |
| the slot and takes a nap until the next iteration. Repeat until the |
| remains of the horse are well and thoroughly beaten."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So he's carrying on a conversation," Chelsea said. "In |
| Chinese, I assume, or they would have called it the Spanish |
| Inquisition."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Exactly. Point being you can use basic pattern-matching |
| algorithms to participate in a conversation <I>without having any |
| idea what you're saying</I>. Depending on how good your rules are, |
| you can pass a Turing test. You can be a wit and raconteur in a |
| language you don't even speak."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's synthesis?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only the part that involves downscaling semiotic protocols. |
| And only in principle. And I'm actually getting my input in |
| Cantonese and replying in German, because I'm more of a conduit than |
| a conversant. But you get the idea."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you keep all the rules and protocols straight? There |
| must be millions of them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's like anything else. Once you learn the rules, you do it |
| unconsciously. Like riding a bike, or pinging the noosphere. You |
| don't actively think about the protocols at all, you just—<I>imagine</I> |
| how your targets behave."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mmm." A subtle half-smile played at the corner of her |
| mouth. "But—the argument's not really a fallacy then, is |
| it? It's spot-on: you really <I>don't</I> understand Cantonese or |
| German."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The <I>system</I> understands. The whole Room, with all its |
| parts. The guy who does the scribbling is just one component. You |
| wouldn't expect a single neuron in your head to understand English, |
| would you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sometimes one's all I can spare." Chelsea shook her head. |
| She wasn't going to let it go. I could see her sorting questions in |
| order of priority; I could see them getting increasingly—personal…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To get back to the matter at hand," I said, preempting |
| them all, "you were going to show me how to do that thing with |
| the fingers…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A wicked grin wiped the questions right off her face. "Oooh, |
| that's <I>right</I>…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It's risky, getting involved. Too many confounds. Every tool in the |
| shed goes dull and rusty the moment you get entangled with the system |
| you're observing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Still serviceable in a pinch, though.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It hides now," Sarasti said. "It's vulnerable now.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now we go in."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't news so much as review: we'd been straight-lining towards |
| Ben for days now. But perhaps the Chinese Room Hypothesis had |
| strengthened his resolve. At any rate, with <I>Rorschach</I> in |
| eclipse once more, we prepared to take intrusiveness to the next |
| level.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> was perpetually gravid; a generic probe incubated in |
| her fabrication plant, its development arrested just short of birth |
| in anticipation of unforeseen mission requirements. Sometime between |
| briefings the Captain had brought it to parturition, customized for |
| close contact and ground work. It burned down the well at high gee a |
| good ten hours before <I>Rorschach</I>'s next scheduled appearance, |
| inserted itself into the rock stream, and went to sleep. If our |
| calculations were in order, it would not be smashed by some errant |
| piece of debris before it woke up again. If all went well, an |
| intelligence that had precisely orchestrated a cast of millions would |
| not notice one extra dancer on the floor. If we were just plain |
| lucky, the myriad high-divers that happened to be line-of-sight at |
| the time were not programmed as tattletales.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Acceptable risks. If we hadn't been up for them, we might as well |
| have stayed home.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And so we waited: four optimized hybrids somewhere past the |
| threshold of mere humanity, one extinct predator who'd opted to |
| command us instead of eating us alive. We waited for <I>Rorschach</I> |
| to come back around the bend. The probe fell smoothly around the |
| well, an ambassador to the unwilling—or, if the Gang was right, |
| maybe just a back-door artist set to B&E an empty condo. |
| Szpindel had named it <I>Jack-in-the-box</I>, after some antique |
| child's toy that didn't even rate a listing in ConSensus; we fell in |
| its wake, nearly ballistic now, momentum and inertia carefully |
| precalculated to thread us through the chaotic minefield of Ben's |
| accretion belt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Kepler couldn't do it all, though; <I>Theseus</I> grumbled briefly |
| now and then, the intermittent firing of her attitude jets rumbling |
| softly up the spine as the Captain tweaked our descent into the |
| Maelstrom.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>No plan ever survives contact with the enemy</I> I remembered, but |
| I didn't know from where.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Got it," Bates said. A speck appeared at Ben's edge; the |
| display zoomed instantly to closeup. "Proximity boot."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I> remained invisible to <I>Theseus</I>, close as we |
| were, close as we were coming. But parallax stripped at least some |
| of the scales from the probe's eyes; it woke to spikes and spirals of |
| smoky glass flickering in and out of view, Ben's flat endless horizon |
| semivisible through the intervening translucence. The view trembled; |
| waveforms rippled across ConSensus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Quite the magnetic field," Szpindel remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Braking," Bates reported. Jack turned smoothly retrograde |
| and fired its torch. On Tactical, delta-vee swung to red.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha was driving the Gang's body this shift. "Incoming |
| signal," she reported. "Same format."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked. "Pipe it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. Hello again, <I>Theseus</I>." |
| The voice was female this time, and middle-aged.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha grinned "See? She's not offended at all. Big hairy dick |
| notwithstanding."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't answer," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Burn complete," Bates reported.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Coasting now, Jack—<I>sneezed</I>. Silver chaff shot into the |
| void towards the target: millions of compass needles, brilliantly |
| reflective, fast enough to make <I>Theseus</I> seem slow. They were |
| gone in an instant. The probe watched them flee, swept laser eyes |
| across every degree of arc, scanned its sky twice a second and took |
| careful note of each and every reflective flash. Only at first did |
| those needles shoot along anything approaching a straight line: then |
| they swept abruptly into Lorentz spirals, twisted into sudden arcs |
| and corkscrews, shot away along new and intricate trajectories |
| bordering on the relativistic. The contours of <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| magnetic field resolved in ConSensus, at first glance like the nested |
| layers of a glass onion.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Sproinnnng</I>," Szpindel said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At second glance the onion grew wormy. Invaginations appeared, long |
| snaking tunnels of energy proliferating fractally at every scale.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. Hello, <I>Theseus</I>. |
| You there?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A holographic inset beside the main display plotted the points of a |
| triangle in flux: <I>Theseus</I> at the apex, <I>Rorschach</I> and |
| Jack defining the narrow base.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. I <I>seeee</I> you...."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She's got a more casual affect than <I>he</I> ever did." |
| Sascha glanced up at Sarasti, and did not add <I>You sure about this?</I> |
| She was starting to wonder herself, though. Starting to dwell on |
| the potential consequences of being <I>wrong</I>, now that we were |
| committed. As far as sober second thought was concerned it was too |
| little too late; but for Sascha, that was progress.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Besides, it had been Sarasti's decision.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Great hoops were resolving in <I>Rorschach</I>'s magnetosphere. |
| Invisible to human eyes, their outlines were vanishingly faint even |
| on Tactical; the chaff had scattered so thinly across the sky that |
| even the Captain was resorting to guesswork. The new macrostructures |
| hovered in the magnetosphere like the nested gimbals of some great |
| phantom gyroscope. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I see you haven't changed your vector," <I>Rorschach</I> |
| remarked. "We really wouldn't advise continuing your approach. |
| Seriously. For your own safety."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shook his head. "Hey, Mandy. <I>Rorschach</I> talking |
| to Jack at all?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If it is, I'm not seeing it. No incident light, no directed EM |
| of any kind." She smiled grimly. "Seems to have snuck in |
| under the radar. And don't call me Mandy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> groaned, twisting. I staggered in the low pseudograv, |
| reached out to steady myself. "Course correction," Bates |
| reported. "Unplotted rock."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. Please respond. Your |
| current heading is unacceptable, repeat, your current heading is |
| <I>unacceptable</I>. <I>Strongly</I> advise you change course."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By now the probe coasted just a few kilometers off <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| leading edge. That close it served up way more than magnetic fields: |
| it presented <I>Rorschach</I> itself in bright, tactical color |
| codes. Invisible curves and spikes iridesced in ConSensus across any |
| number of on-demand pigment schemes: gravity, reflectivity, |
| blackbody emissions. Massive electrical bolts erupting from the tips |
| of thorns rendered in lemon pastels. User-friendly graphics had |
| turned <I>Rorschach</I> into a cartoon.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. Please respond."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> growled to stern, fishtailing. On tactical, another |
| just-plotted piece of debris swept by a discreet six thousand meters |
| to port.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> to <I>Theseus</I>. If you are unable to |
| respond, please—<I>holy shit!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The cartoon flickered and died.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd seen what had happened in that last instant, though: Jack |
| passing near one of those great phantom hoops; a tongue of energy |
| flicking out, quick as a frog's; a dead feed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I see what you're up to <I>now</I>, you <I>cocksuckers</I>. Do |
| you think we're fucking <I>blind</I> down here?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha clenched her teeth. "We—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But it <I>fi</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti <I>hissed</I>, from somewhere in the back of his throat. I |
| had never heard a mammal make a noise quite like that before. Sascha |
| fell immediately silent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates negotiated with her controls. "I've still got—just |
| a sec—" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You pull that thing back <I>right fucking now</I>, you hear us? |
| <I>Right fucking now.</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Got it</I>." Bates gritted as the feed came back up. |
| "Just had to reacquire the laser." The probe had been |
| kicked wildly off-course—as if someone fording a river had been |
| caught in sudden undertow and thrown over a waterfall—but it |
| was still talking, and still mobile.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Barely. Bates struggled to stay the course. Jack staggered and |
| wobbled uncontrollably though the tightly-wound folds of <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| magnetosphere. The artefact loomed huge in its eye. The feed |
| strobed. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maintain approach," Sarasti said calmly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Love to," Bates gritted. "Trying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> skidded again, corkscrewing. I could have sworn I |
| heard the bearings in the drum <I>grind</I> for a moment. Another |
| rock sailed past on Tactical.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought you'd <I>plotted</I> those things," Szpindel |
| grumbled.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>You want to start a war, Theseus</I>? Is that what you're |
| trying to do? You think you're up for it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't attack," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe it does." Bates kept her voice low; I could see the |
| effort it took. "If <I>Rorschach</I> can control the |
| trajectories of these—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Normal distribution. Insignificant corrections." He must |
| have meant statistically: the torque and grind of the ship's hull |
| felt pretty significant to the others. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, right," <I>Rorschach</I> said suddenly. "We get |
| it <I>now</I>. You don't think there's anyone here, do you? You've |
| got some high-priced consultant telling you there's nothing to worry |
| about."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jack was deep in the forest. We'd lost most of the tactical overlays |
| to reduced baud. In dim visible light <I>Rorschach</I>'s great |
| ridged spines, each the size of a skyscraper, hashed a nightmare view |
| on all sides. The feed stuttered as Bates struggled to keep the beam |
| aligned. ConSensus painted walls and airspace with arcane telemetry. |
| I had no idea what any of it meant. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You think we're nothing but a <I>Chinese Room</I>," |
| <I>Rorschach</I> sneered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jack stumbled towards collision, grasping for something to hang on |
| to.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Your mistake, <I>Theseus</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It hit something. It stuck.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And suddenly <I>Rorschach</I> snapped into view—no refractory |
| composites, no profiles or simulations in false color. There it was |
| at last, naked even to Human eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine a crown of thorns, twisted, dark and unreflective, grown too |
| thickly tangled to ever rest on any human head. Put it in orbit |
| around a failed star whose own reflected half-light does little more |
| than throw its satellites into silhouette. Occasional bloody |
| highlights glinted like dim embers from its twists and crannies; they |
| only emphasized the darkness everywhere else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine an artefact that embodies the very notion of torture, |
| something so wrenched and disfigured that even across uncounted |
| lightyears and unimaginable differences in biology and outlook, you |
| can't help but feel that somehow, the structure itself is in pain.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now make it the size of a city.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It flickered as we watched. Lightning arced from recurved spines a |
| thousand meters long. ConSensus showed us a strobe-lit hellscape, |
| huge and dark and twisted. The composites had lied. It was not the |
| least bit beautiful.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now it's too late," something said from deep inside. "Now |
| every last one of you is dead. And Susan? You there, Susan?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're taking you <I>first.</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Life's |
| too short for chess." </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| — <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Byron |
| </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They never sealed the hatch behind them. It was too easy to get lost |
| up there in the dome, naked infinite space stretching a hundred |
| eighty degrees on every axis. They needed all that emptiness but |
| they needed an anchor in its midst: soft stray light from astern, a |
| gentle draft from the drum, the sounds of people and machinery close |
| by. They needed to have it both ways.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I lay in wait. Reading a dozen blatant cues in their behavior, I was |
| already squirreled away in the forward airlock when they passed. I |
| gave them a few minutes and crept forward to the darkened bridge.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of course they called her by name," Szpindel was saying. |
| "That was the only name they had. She <I>told</I> them, |
| remember?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes." Michelle didn't seem reassured.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey, it was <I>you</I> guys said we were talking to a Chinese |
| Room. You saying you were wrong?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We—no. Of course not."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then it wasn't really threatening Suze at all, was it? It |
| wasn't threatening any of us. It had no idea what it was saying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's <I>rule-based</I>, Isaac. It was following some kind of |
| flowchart it drew up by observing Human languages in action. And |
| somehow those rules told it to respond with threats of violence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But if it doesn't even know what it was saying—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't. It can't. We parsed the phrasing nineteen |
| different ways, tried out conceptual units of every different |
| length..." A long, deep breath. "But it attacked the |
| probe, Isaac."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jack just got too close to one of those electrode thingies is |
| all. It just arced."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you don't think <I>Rorschach</I> is hostile?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Long silence—long enough to make me wonder if I'd been |
| detected.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Hostile</I>," Szpindel said at last. "<I>Friendly</I>. |
| We learned those words for life on Earth, eh? I don't know if they |
| even apply out here." His lips smacked faintly. "But I |
| think it might be something <I>like</I> hostile."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle sighed. "Isaac, there's no <I>reason</I> for—I |
| mean, it just doesn't make <I>sense</I> that it would be. We can't |
| have anything it wants."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It says it wants to be left alone," Szpindel said. "Even |
| if it doesn't mean it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They floated quietly for a while, up there past the bulkhead.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "At least the shielding held," Szpindel said finally. |
| "That's something." He wasn't just talking about Jack; our |
| own carapace was coated with the same stuff now. It had depleted our |
| substrate stockpiles by two thirds, but no one wanted to rely on the |
| ship's usual magnetics in the face of anything that could play so |
| easily with the electromagnetic spectrum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If they attack us, what do we do?" Michelle said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Learn what we can, while we can. Fight back. While we can."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>If</I> we can. Look out there, Isaac. I don't care how |
| <I>embryonic</I> that thing is. Tell me we're not hopelessly |
| outmatched."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Outmatched, for sure. <I>Hopelessly</I>, never."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's not what you said before."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Still. There's always a way to win."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If I said that, you'd call it wishful thinking."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If you said that, it would be. But I'm saying it, so it's game |
| theory."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Game theory again. Jesus, Isaac."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, listen. You're thinking about the aliens like they were |
| some kind of mammal. Something that <I>cares</I>, something that |
| looks after its investments."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you know they aren't?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Because you can't protect your kids when they're lightyears |
| away. They're on their own, and it's a big cold dangerous universe |
| so most of them aren't going to make it, eh? The most you can do is |
| crank out <I>millions</I> of kids, take cold comfort in knowing that |
| a few always luck out through random chance. It's not a mammal |
| mind-set, Meesh. You want an earthbound simile, think of dandelion |
| seeds. Or, or herring."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A soft sigh. "So they're interstellar herring. That hardly |
| means they can't crush us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But they don't know about <I>us</I>, not in advance. Dandelion |
| seed doesn't know what it's up against before it sprouts. Maybe |
| nothing. Maybe some spastic weed that goes over like straw in the |
| wind. Or maybe something that kicks its ass halfway to the |
| Magellanic Clouds. It doesn't <I>know</I>, and there's no such thing |
| as a one-size-fits-all survival strategy. Something that aces |
| against one player blows goats against a different one. So the best |
| you can do is mix up your strategies based on the odds. It's a |
| weighted dice roll and it gives you the best mean payoff over the |
| whole game, but you're bound to crap out and choose the wrong |
| strategy at least some of the time. Price of doing business. And |
| that means—<I>that</I> means—that weak players not only |
| <I>can</I> win against stronger ones, but they're statistically <I>bound</I> |
| to in some cases."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle snorted. "<I>That's</I> your game theory? Rock Paper |
| Scissors with statistics?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe Szpindel didn't know the reference. He didn't speak, long |
| enough to call up a subtitle; then he brayed like a horse. "<I>Rock |
| Paper Scissors</I>! Yes!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle digested that for a moment. "You're sweet for trying, |
| but that only works if the other side is just blindly playing the |
| odds, and they don't have to <I>do</I> that if they know who they're |
| going up against in advance. And my dear, they have so very much |
| information about <I>us</I>..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They'd threatened Susan. By name.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They don't know everything," Szpindel insisted. "And |
| the principle works for <I>any</I> scenario involving incomplete |
| information, not just the ignorant extreme."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not as well."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But <I>some</I>, and that gives us a chance. Doesn't matter |
| how good you are at poker when it comes to the deal, eh? Cards still |
| deal out with the same odds."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So that's what we're playing. Poker."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Be thankful it's not chess. We wouldn't have a hope in hell."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey. <I>I'm</I> supposed to be the optimist in this |
| relationship."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You are. I'm just fatalistically cheerful. We all come into |
| the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're |
| all gonna die before it ends."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's my Isaac. Master of the no-win scenario."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You can win. Winner's the guy who makes the best guess on how |
| it all comes out."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you <I>are</I> just guessing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yup. And you can't make an informed guess without data, eh? |
| And we could be the very first to find out what's gonna happen to the |
| whole Human race. I'd say that puts us into the semifinals, easy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle didn't answer for a very long time. When she did, I |
| couldn't hear her words.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Neither could Szpindel: "Sorry?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Covert</I> to <I>invulnerable</I>, you said. Remember?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Uh huh. <I>Rorschach</I>'s Graduation Day. "</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How soon, do you think?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No idea. But I don't think it's the kind of thing that's gonna |
| slip by unnoticed. And that's why I don't think it attacked us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She must have looked a question.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Because when it does, it won't be some debatable candy-ass |
| bitch slap," he told her. "When that fucker rises up, |
| we're gonna <I>know</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A sudden flicker from behind. I spun in the cramped passageway and |
| bit down on a cry: something squirmed out of sight around the |
| corner, something with <I>arms</I>, barely glimpsed, gone in an |
| instant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Never there. Couldn't be there. Impossible.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did you hear that?" Szpindel asked, but I'd fled to stern |
| before Michelle could answer him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We'd fallen so far that the naked eye didn't see a disk, barely even |
| saw curvature<I> </I>any more. We were falling towards a <I>wall</I>, |
| a vast roiling expanse of dark thunderclouds that extended in all |
| directions to some new, infinitely-distant horizon. Ben filled half |
| the universe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And still we fell.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Far below, Jack clung to <I>Rorschach</I>'s ridged surface with |
| bristly gecko-feet fenders and set up camp. It sent x-rays and |
| ultrasound into the ground, tapped enquiring fingers and listened to |
| the echos, planted tiny explosive charges and measured the resonance |
| of their detonations. It shed seeds like pollen: tiny probes and |
| sensors by the thousands, self-powered, near-sighted, stupid and |
| expendable. The vast majority were sacrificial offerings to random |
| chance; only one in a hundred lasted long enough to return usable |
| telemetry.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| While our advance scout took measure of its local neighborhood, |
| <I>Theseus</I> drew larger-scale birdseye maps from the closing sky. |
| It spat out thousands of its own disposable probes, spread them |
| across the heavens and collected stereoscopic data from a thousand |
| simultaneous perspectives.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Patchwork insights assembled in the drum. <I>Rorschach</I>'s skin |
| was sixty percent superconducting carbon nanotube. <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| guts were largely hollow; at least some of those hollows appeared to |
| contain an atmosphere. No earthly form of life would have lasted a |
| second in there, though; intricate topographies of radiation and |
| electromagnetic force seethed around the structure, seethed within |
| it. In some places the radiation was intense enough to turn |
| unshielded flesh to ash in an instant; calmer backwaters would merely |
| kill in the same span of time. Charged particles raced around |
| invisible racetracks at relativistic speeds, erupting from jagged |
| openings, hugging curves of magnetic force strong enough for neutron |
| stars, arcing through open space and plunging back into black mass. |
| Occasional protuberances swelled and burst and released clouds of |
| microparticulates, seeding the radiation belts like spores. |
| <I>Rorschach</I> resembled nothing so much as a nest of half-naked |
| cyclotrons, tangled one with another.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Neither Jack below nor <I>Theseus</I> above could find any points of |
| entry, beyond those impassable gaps that spat out streams of charged |
| particles or swallowed them back down. No airlocks or hatches or |
| viewports resolved with increasing proximity. The fact that we'd |
| been threatened via laser beam implied some kind of optical antennae |
| or tightcast array; we weren't even able to find that much.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A central hallmark of von Neumann machines was self-replication. |
| Whether <I>Rorschach</I> would meet that criterion—whether it |
| would germinate, or divide, or give birth when it passed some |
| critical threshold—whether it had done so already—remained |
| an open question. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One of a thousand. At the end of it all—after all the |
| measurements, the theorizing and deduction and outright guesswork—we |
| settled into orbit with a million trivial details and no answers. In |
| terms of the big questions, there was only one thing we knew for |
| sure.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So far, <I>Rorschach</I> was holding its fire.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It sounded to <I>me</I> like it knew what it was saying," |
| I remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I guess that's the whole point," Bates said. She had no |
| one to confide in, partook of no intimate dialogs that could be |
| overheard. With her, I used the direct approach.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> was birthing a litter, two by two. They were |
| nasty-looking things, armored, squashed egg-shapes, twice the size of |
| a human torso and studded with gardening implements: antennae, |
| optical ports, retractable threadsaws. Weapons muzzles.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates was summoning her troops. We floated before the primary fab |
| port at the base of <I>Theseus</I>' spine. The plant could just as |
| easily have disgorged the grunts directly into the hold beneath the |
| carapace—that was where they'd be stored anyway, until called |
| upon—but Bates was giving each a visual inspection before |
| sending it through one of the airlocks a few meters up the |
| passageway. Ritual, perhaps. Military tradition. Certainly there |
| was nothing she could see with her eyes that wouldn't be glaringly |
| obvious to the most basic diagnostic.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Would it be a problem?" I asked. "Running them |
| without your interface?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Run themselves just fine. Response time actually improves |
| without spam in the network. I'm more of a safety precaution."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> growled, giving us more attitude. The plating |
| trembled to stern; another piece of local debris, no longer in our |
| path. We were angling towards an equatorial orbit just a few |
| miniscule kilometers above the artefact; insanely, the approach |
| curved right through the accretion belt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It didn't bother the others. "Like surviving traffic in a high |
| speed lane," Sascha had said, disdainful of my misgivings. "Try |
| creeping across and you're road kill. Gotta speed up, go with the |
| flow." But the flow was turbulent; we hadn't gone five minutes |
| without a course correction since <I>Rorschach</I> had stopped |
| talking to us. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So, do you buy it?" I asked. "Pattern-matching, |
| empty threats? Nothing to worry about?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nobody's fired on us yet," she said. Meaning: <I>Not for |
| a second</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's your take on Susan's argument? Different niches, no |
| reason for conflict?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Makes sense, I guess." <I>Utter bullshit</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can you think of any reason why something with such different |
| needs <I>would</I> attack us?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That depends," she said, "on whether the fact that we |
| <I>are</I> different is reason enough."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I saw playground battlefields reflected in her topology. I |
| remembered my own, and wondered if there were any other kind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Then again, that only proved the point. Humans didn't <I>really</I> |
| fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for |
| kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines |
| and limited resources. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think Isaac would say this is different," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I guess." Bates sent one grunt humming off to the hold; |
| two more emerged in formation, spinelight glinting off their armor.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How many of these are you making, anyway?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're breaking and entering, Siri. Not wise to leave our own |
| house unguarded." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I inspected her surfaces as she inspected theirs. Doubt and |
| resentment simmered just beneath.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're in a tough spot," I remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We all are."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But you're responsible for defending us, against something we |
| don't know anything about. We're only guessing that—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sarasti doesn't <I>guess</I>," Bates said. "The |
| man's in charge for a reason. Doesn't make much sense to question |
| his orders, given we're all about a hundred IQ points short of |
| understanding the answer anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And yet he's also got that whole predatory side nobody talks |
| about," I remarked. "It must be difficult for him, all |
| that intellect coexisting with so much instinctive aggression. |
| Making sure the right part wins."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She wondered in that instant whether Sarasti might be listening in. |
| She decided in the next that it didn't matter: why should he care |
| what the cattle thought, as long as they did what they were told?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| All she said was, "I thought you jargonauts weren't supposed to |
| have opinions."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That wasn't mine."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates paused. Returned to her inspection.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You do know what I do," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Uh huh." The first of the current pair passed muster and |
| hummed off up the spine. She turned to the second. "You |
| simplify things. So the folks back home can understand what the |
| specialists are up to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's part of it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't need a translator, Siri. I'm just a consultant, |
| assuming things go well. A bodyguard if they don't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're an officer and a military expert. I'd say that makes |
| you more than qualified when it comes to assessing <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| threat potential."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm muscle. Shouldn't you be <I>simplifying</I> Jukka or |
| Isaac?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's exactly what I'm doing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She looked at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You <I>interact</I>," I said. "Every component of |
| the system affects every other. Processing Sarasti without |
| factoring you in would be like trying to calculate acceleration while |
| ignoring mass."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She turned back to her brood. Another robot passed muster.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She didn't hate <I>me</I>. What she hated was what my presence |
| implied.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>They don't trust us to speak for ourselves</I>, she wouldn't say. |
| <I>No matter how qualified we are, no matter how far ahead of the pack. |
| Maybe even </I>because<I> of that. We're contaminated. We're |
| subjective. So they send Siri Keeton to tell them what we </I>really<I> |
| mean.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I get it," I said after a moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not about trust, Major. It's about <I>location</I>. |
| Nobody gets a good view of a system from the inside, no matter who |
| they are. The view's distorted."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And yours isn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm outside the system."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're interacting with me now."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As an observer only. Perfection's unattainable but it isn't |
| <I>unapproachable</I>, you know? I don't play a role in |
| decision-making or research, I don't interfere in any aspect of the |
| mission that I'm assigned to study. But of course I ask questions. |
| The more information I have, the better my analysis."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought you didn't have to <I>ask</I>. I thought you guys |
| could just, read the signs or something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Every bit helps. It all goes into the mix."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You doing it now? <I>Synthesizing</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And you do this without any specialized knowledge at all."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm as much of a specialist as you. I specialize in processing |
| informational topologies."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Without understanding their content."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Understanding the shapes is enough."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates seemed to find some small imperfection in the battlebot under |
| scrutiny, scratched at its shell with a fingernail. "Software |
| couldn't do that without your help?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Software can do a lot of things. We've chosen to do some for |
| ourselves." I nodded at the grunt. "Your visual |
| inspections, for example." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She smiled faintly, conceding the point.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So I'd encourage you to speak freely. You know I'm sworn to |
| confidentiality."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks," she said, meaning <I>On this ship, there's no |
| such thing.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> chimed. Sarasti spoke in its wake: "Orbital |
| insertion in fifteen minutes. Everyone to the drum in five."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well," Bates said, sending one last grunt on its way. |
| "Here we go." She pushed off and sailed up the spine.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The newborn killing machines clicked at me. They smelled like new |
| cars.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "By the way," Bates called over her shoulder, "you |
| missed the obvious one." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sorry?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She spun a hundred-eighty degrees at the end of the passageway, |
| landed like an acrobat beside the drum hatch. "The reason. Why |
| something would attack us even if we didn't have anything it wanted."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I read it off her: "If it wasn't attacking at all. If it was |
| defending itself."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You asked about Sarasti. Smart man. Strong Leader. Maybe |
| could spend a little more time with the troops."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Vampire doesn't respect his command. Doesn't listen to advice. |
| Hides away half the time. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I remembered transient killer whales. "Maybe he's being |
| considerate." <I> He knows he makes us nervous.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm sure that's it," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Vampire doesn't trust himself.</I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't just Sarasti. They <I>all</I> hid from us, even when they |
| had the upper hand. They always stayed just the other side of myth.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It started pretty much the same way it did for anything else; |
| vampires were far from the first to learn the virtues of energy |
| conservation. Shrews and hummingbirds, saddled with tiny bodies and |
| overclocked metabolic engines, would have starved to death overnight |
| if not for the torpor that overtook them at sundown. Comatose |
| elephant seals lurked breathless at the bottom of the sea, rousing |
| only for passing prey or redline lactate levels. Bears and chipmunks |
| cut costs by sleeping away the impoverished winter months, and |
| lungfish—Devonian black belts in the art of estivation—could |
| curl up and die for years, waiting for the rains.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| With vampires it was a little different. It wasn't shortness of |
| breath, or metabolic overdrive, or some blanket of snow that locked |
| the pantry every winter. The problem wasn't so much a lack of prey |
| as a lack of <I>difference</I> from it; vampires were such a recent |
| split from the ancestral baseline that the reproductive rates hadn't |
| diverged. This was no woodland-variety lynx-hare dynamic, where prey |
| outnumbered predators a hundred to one. Vampires fed on things that |
| bred barely faster than they did. They would have wiped out their |
| own food supply in no time if they hadn't learned how to ease off on |
| the throttle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time they went extinct they'd learned to shut down for |
| <I>decades</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It made two kinds of sense. It not only slashed their metabolic |
| needs while prey bred itself back to harvestable levels, it gave us |
| time to forget that we <I>were</I> prey. We were so smart by the |
| Pleistocene, smart enough for easy skepticism; if you haven't seen |
| any night-stalking demons in all your years on the savannah, why |
| should you believe some senile campfire ramblings passed down by your |
| mother's mother?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was murder on our ancestors, even if those same enemy |
| genes—co-opted now—served us so well when we left the sun |
| a half-million years later. But it was almost—heartening, I |
| guess—to think that maybe Sarasti felt the tug of other genes, |
| some aversion to prolonged visibility shaped by generations of |
| natural selection. Maybe he spent every moment in our company |
| fighting voices that urged him to <I>hide, hide, let them forget</I>. |
| Maybe he retreated when they got too loud, maybe we made him as |
| uneasy as he made us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We could always hope.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Our final orbit combined discretion and valor in equal measure.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I> described a perfect equatorial circle 87,900 km from |
| Big Ben's center of gravity. Sarasti was unwilling to let it out of |
| sight, and you didn't have to be a vampire to mistrust relay sats |
| when swinging through a radiation-soaked blizzard of rock and |
| machinery. The obvious alternative was to match orbits.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At the same time, all the debate over whether or not <I>Rorschach</I> |
| had meant—or even understood—the threats it had made was |
| a bit beside the point. Counterintrusion measures were a distinct |
| possibility either way, and ongoing proximity only increased the |
| risk. So Sarasti had derived some optimum compromise, a mildly |
| eccentric orbit that nearly brushed the artefact at perigee but kept |
| a discreet distance the rest of the time. It was a longer trajectory |
| than <I>Rorschach</I>'s, and higher—we<I> </I>had to burn on |
| the descending arc to keep in synch—but the end result was |
| continuously line-of-sight, and only brought us within striking |
| distance for three hours either side of bottoming out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Our</I> striking distance, that is. For all we knew <I>Rorschach</I> |
| could have reached out and swatted us from the sky before we'd even |
| left the solar system.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti gave the command from his tent. ConSensus carried his voice |
| into the drum as <I>Theseus</I> coasted to apogee: "Now."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jack had erected a tent about itself, a blister glued to <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| hull and blown semi-taut against vacuum with the merest whiff of |
| nitrogen. Now it brought lasers to bear and started digging; if we'd |
| read the vibrations right, the ground should be only thirty-four |
| centimeters deep beneath its feet. The beams stuttered as they cut, |
| despite six millimeters of doped shielding.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Son of a bitch," Szpindel murmured. "It's <I>working</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We burned through tough fibrous epidermis. We burned through veins |
| of insulation that might have been some sort of programmable |
| asbestos. We burned through alternating layers of superconducting |
| mesh, and the strata of flaking carbon separating them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We burned <I>through</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The lasers shut down instantly. Within seconds <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| intestinal gases had blown taut the skin of the tent. Black carbon |
| smoke swirled and danced in sudden thick atmosphere.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nothing shot back at us. Nothing reacted. Partial pressures piled |
| up on ConSensus: methane, ammonia, hydrogen. Lots of water vapor, |
| freezing as fast as it registered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel grunted. "Reducing atmosphere. Pre-Snowball." |
| He sounded disappointed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe it's a work in progress," James suggested. "Like |
| the structure itself."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jack stuck out its tongue, a giant mechanical sperm with a |
| myo-optical tail. Its head was a thick-skinned lozenge, at least |
| half ceramic shielding by cross-section; the tiny payload of sensors |
| at its core was rudimentary, but small enough for the whole assembly |
| to thread through the pencil-thin hole the laser had cut. It |
| unspooled down the hole, rimming <I>Rorschach</I>'s newly-torn |
| orifice.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Dark down there," James observed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates: "But warm." 281<FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>K. |
| Above freezing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The endoscope emerged into darkness. Infrared served up a grainy |
| grayscale of a — a tunnel, it looked like, replete with mist |
| and exotic rock formations. The walls curved like honeycomb, like |
| the insides of fossilized intestine. Cul-de-sacs and branches |
| proliferated down the passage. The basic substrate appeared to be a |
| dense pastry of carbon-fiber leaves. Some of the gaps between those |
| layers were barely thick as fingernails; others looked wide enough to |
| stack bodies.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ladies and gentlemen," Szpindel said softly, "The |
| Devil's Baklava."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could have sworn I saw something move. I could have sworn it |
| looked familiar.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The camera died.</P> |
|
|
| <br><br><br><a name="Rorschach"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a><br><br><br> |
|
|
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Rorschach</H2> |
|
|
| <br><br><br> |
|
|
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-before: always"> |
| "<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Mothers |
| are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more |
| certain they are their own." </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Aristotle</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't say goodbye to Dad. I didn't even know where he was.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't <I>want</I> to say goodbye to Helen. I didn't want to go |
| back there. That was the problem: I didn't have to. There was |
| nowhere left in the world where the mountain couldn't simply pick up |
| and move to Mohammed. Heaven was merely a suburb of the global |
| village, and the global village left me no excuse.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I linked from my own apartment. My new inlays—mission-specific, |
| slid into my head just the week before—shook hands with the |
| noosphere and knocked upon the Pearly Gates. Some tame spirit, more |
| plausible than Saint Peter if no less ethereal, took a message and |
| disappeared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And I was <I>inside</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This was no antechamber, no visiting room. Heaven was not intended |
| for the casual visitor; any paradise in which the flesh-constrained |
| would feel at home would have been intolerably pedestrian to the |
| disembodied souls who lived there. Of course, there was no reason |
| why visitor and resident had to share the same view. I could have |
| pulled any conventional worldview off the shelf if I'd wanted, seen |
| this place rendered in any style I chose. Except for the Ascended |
| themselves, of course. That was one of the perks of the Afterlife: |
| only <I>they</I> got to choose the face we saw.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But the thing my mother had become <I>had </I>no face, and I was |
| damned if she was going to see me hide behind some mask.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hello, Helen."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri! What a wonderful surprise!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She was an abstraction in an abstraction: an impossible intersection |
| of dozens of bright panes, as if the disassembled tiles of a |
| stained-glass window had each been set aglow and animated. She |
| swirled before me like a school of fish. Her world echoed her body: |
| lights and angles and three-dimensional Escher impossibilities, piled |
| like bright thunderheads. And yet, somehow I would have recognised |
| her anywhere. Heaven was a dream; only upon waking do you realize |
| that the characters you encountered looked nothing like they do in |
| real life.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was only one familiar landmark anywhere in the whole sensorium. |
| My mother's heaven smelled of cinnamon.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I beheld her luminous avatar and imagined the corpus soaking in a |
| tank of nutrients, deep underground. "How are you doing?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Very well. <I>Very</I> well. Of course, it takes a little |
| getting used to, knowing your mind isn't quite <I>yours</I> any |
| more." Heaven didn't just feed the brains of its residents; it |
| fed <I>off </I> them, used the surplus power of idle synapses to run |
| its own infrastructure. "You <I>have</I> to move in here, |
| sooner better than later. You'll never leave."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Actually, I <I>am</I> leaving," I said. "We're |
| shipping out tomorrow."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shipping out?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The Kuiper. You know. The Fireflies?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh yes. I think I heard something about that. We don't get |
| much news from the outside world, you know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway, just thought I'd call in and say goodbye."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm glad you did. I've been hoping to see you without, you |
| know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Without what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You know. Without your father listening in."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Dad's in the field, Helen. Interplanetary crisis. You might |
| have heard something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I certainly have. You know, I haven't always been happy about |
| your father's—extended assignments, but maybe it was really a |
| blessing in disguise. The less he was around, the less he could do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To you." The apparition stilled for a few moments, |
| feigning hesitation. "I've never told you this before, but—no. |
| I shouldn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shouldn't what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Bring up, well, old hurts."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What old hurts?" Right on cue. I couldn't help myself, |
| the training went too deep. I always barked on command. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well," she began, "sometimes you'd come back—you |
| were so very young—and your face would be so set and hard, and |
| I'd wonder why are you so <I>angry</I>, little boy? What can someone |
| so young have to be so angry about?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Helen, what are you talking about? Back from where?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just from the places he'd take you." Something like a |
| shiver passed across her facets. "He was still around back |
| then. He wasn't so <I>important</I>, he was just an accountant with |
| a karate fetish, going on about forensics and game theory and |
| astronomy until he put everyone to sleep."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to imagine it: my father, the chatterbox. "That |
| doesn't sound like Dad."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well of course not. You were too young to remember, but he was |
| just a little man, then. He still is, really, under all the secret |
| missions and classified briefings. I've never understood why people |
| never saw that. But even back then he liked to—well, it wasn't |
| his fault, I suppose. He had a very difficult childhood, and he |
| never learned to deal with problems like an adult. He, well, he'd |
| throw his weight around, I guess you'd say. Of course I didn't know |
| that before we married. If I had, I—but I made a commitment. |
| I made a commitment, and I never broke it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, are you saying you were abused?" <I>Back from the |
| places he'd take you</I>. "Are—are you saying <I>I</I> |
| was?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There are all kinds of abuse, Siri. Words can hurt more than |
| bullets, sometimes. And child abandonment—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He didn't abandon me." <I>He left me with </I>you<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He abandoned <I>us</I>, Siri. Sometimes for months at a time, |
| and I—and we never knew if he was coming back And he <I>chose</I> |
| to do that to us, Siri. He didn't <I>need</I> that job, there were |
| so many other things he was qualified to do. Things that had been |
| redundant for years."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shook my head, incredulous, unable to say it aloud: she hated him |
| because he hadn't had the good grace to grow <I>unnecessary</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not Dad's fault that planetary security is still an |
| essential service," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She continued as if she hadn't heard. "Now there was a time |
| when it was unavoidable, when people our age <I>had</I> to work just |
| to make ends meet. But even back then people <I>wanted</I> to spend |
| time with their families. Even if they couldn't afford to. To, to |
| <I>choose</I> to stay working when it isn't even <I>necessary</I>, |
| that's—" She shattered and reassembled at my shoulder. |
| "Yes, Siri. I believe that's a kind of abuse. And if your |
| father had been half as loyal to me as I've been to him all these |
| years..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I remembered Jim, the last time I'd seen him: snorting vassopressin |
| under the restless eyes of robot sentries. "I don't think Dad's |
| been disloyal to either of us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Helen sighed. "I don't really expect you to understand. I'm |
| not completely stupid, I've seen how it played out. I pretty much |
| had to raise you myself all these years. I always had to play the |
| heavy, always had to be the one to hand out the discipline because |
| your father was off on some <I>secret assignment</I>. And then he'd |
| come home for a week or two and he was the golden-haired boy just |
| because he'd seen fit to drop in. I don't really blame you for that |
| any more than I blame him. Blame doesn't solve anything at this |
| stage. I just thought—well, really, I thought you ought to |
| know. Take it for what it's worth."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A memory, unbidden: called into Helen's bed when I was nine, her |
| hand stroking my scar, her stale sweet breath stirring against my |
| cheek. <I>You're the man of the house now Siri. We can't count on |
| your father any more. It's just you and me...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't say anything for a while. Finally: "Didn't it help at |
| all?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I glanced around at all that customized abstraction: internal |
| feedback, lucidly dreamed. "You're omnipotent in here. Desire |
| anything, imagine anything; there it is. I'd thought it would have |
| <I>changed</I> you more."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Rainbow tiles danced, and forced a laugh. "This isn't enough of |
| a <I>change</I> for you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not nearly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because Heaven had a catch. No matter how many constructs and |
| avatars Helen built in there, no matter how many empty vessels sang |
| her praises or commiserated over the injustices she'd suffered, when |
| it came right down to it she was only talking to herself. There were |
| other realities over which she had no control, other people who |
| didn't play by her rules—and if they thought of Helen at all, |
| they thought as they damn well pleased.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She could go the rest of her life without ever meeting any of them. |
| But she knew they were out there, and it drove her crazy. Taking my |
| leave of Heaven, it occurred to me that omnipotent though she was, |
| there was only one way my mother would ever be truly happy in her |
| own personal creation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The rest of creation would have to go.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "This shouldn't keep happening," Bates said. "The |
| shielding was good."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang was up across the drum, squaring away something in their |
| tent. Sarasti lurked offstage today, monitoring the proceedings from |
| his quarters. That left me with Bates and Szpindel in the Commons.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe against direct EM." Szpindel stretched, stifled a |
| yawn. "Ultrasound boots up magnetic fields through shielding |
| sometimes, in living tissue at least. Any chance something like that |
| could be happening with your electronics?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates spread her hands. "Who knows? Might as well be black |
| magic and elves down there."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, it's not a total wash. We can make a few smart guesses, |
| eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Such as."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel raised one finger. "The layers we cut through couldn't |
| result from any metabolic process <I>I</I> know about. So it's not |
| 'alive', not in the biological sense. Not that that means anything |
| these days," he added, glancing around the belly of our beast.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What about life <I>inside</I> the structure?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anoxic atmosphere. Probably rules out complex multicellular |
| life. Microbes, maybe, although if so I wish to hell they show up in |
| the samples. But anything complex enough to think, let alone build |
| something like <I>that</I>"—a wave at the image in |
| ConSensus—"is gonna need a high-energy metabolism, and |
| that means oxygen."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you think it's empty?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Didn't say that, did I? I know aliens are supposed to be all |
| mysterious and everything, but I still don't see why <I>anyone</I> |
| would build a city-sized wildlife refuge for anaerobic microbes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's got to be a habitat for <I>something</I>. Why any |
| atmosphere at all, if it's just some kind of terraforming machine?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel pointed up at the Gang's tent. "What Susan said. |
| Atmosphere's still under construction and we get a free ride until |
| the owners show up." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Free?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Free<I>ish</I>. And I know we've only seen a fraction of a |
| fraction of what's inside. But something obviously saw us coming. |
| It yelled at us, as I recall. If they're smart and they're hostile, |
| why aren't they shooting?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe they are."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If something's hiding down the hall wrecking your robots, it's |
| not frying them any faster than the baseline environment would do |
| anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What you call a <I>baseline environment</I> might be an active |
| counterintrusion measure. Why else would a <I>habitat</I> be so |
| uninhabitable?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel rolled his eyes. "Okay, I was wrong. We <I>don't</I> |
| know enough to make a few smart guesses."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not that we hadn't tried. Once Jack's sensor head had been |
| irreparably fried, we'd relegated it to surface excavation; it had |
| widened the bore in infinitesimal increments, patiently burning back |
| the edges of our initial peephole until it measured almost a meter |
| across. Meanwhile we'd customized Bates's grunts—shielded them |
| against nuclear reactors and the insides of cyclotrons—and come |
| perigee we'd thrown them at <I>Rorschach</I> like stones chucked into |
| a haunted forest. Each had gone through Jack's portal, unspooling |
| whisker-thin fiberop behind them to pass intelligence through the |
| charged atmosphere.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They'd sent glimpses, mostly. A few extended vignettes. We'd seen |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s walls move, slow lazy waves of peristalsis |
| rippling along its gut. We'd seen treacly invaginations in |
| progress, painstaking constrictions that would presumably, given |
| time, seal off a passageway. Our grunts had sailed through some |
| quarters, staggered through others where the magnetic ambience threw |
| them off balance. They'd passed through strange throats lined with |
| razor-thin teeth, thousands of triangular blades in parallel rows, |
| helically twisted. They'd edged cautiously around clouds of mist |
| sculpted into abstract fractal shapes, shifting and endlessly |
| recursive, their charged droplets strung along a myriad converging |
| lines of electromagnetic force. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ultimately, every one of them had died or disappeared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Any way to increase the shielding?" I wondered. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel gave me a look.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We've shielded everything except the sensor heads," Bates |
| explained. "If we shield <I>those</I> we're blind."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But visible light's harmless enough. What about purely optical |
| li—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're <I>using</I> optical links, commissar," Szpindel |
| snapped. "And you may have noticed the shit's getting through |
| anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But aren't there, you know—" I groped for the word— |
| "bandpass filters? Something that lets visible wavelengths |
| through, cuts out the lethal stuff on both sides?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He snorted. "Sure. It's called an atmosphere, and if we'd |
| brought one with us—about fifty times deeper than Earth's— |
| it <I>might</I> block some of that soup down there. Course, Earth |
| also gets a lot of help from its magnetic field, but I'm not betting |
| my life on any EM we set up in <I>that</I> place."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If we didn't keep running into these <I>spikes</I>," Bates |
| said. "That's the real problem." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are they random?" I wondered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's shrug was half shiver. "I don't think anything about |
| that place is random. But who knows? We need more data."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Which we're not likely to get," James said, walking around |
| the ceiling to join us, "if our drones keep shorting out."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The conditional was pure formality. We'd tried playing the odds, |
| sacrificing drone after drone in the hope that one of them would get |
| lucky; survival rates tailed exponentially to zero with distance from |
| base camp. We'd tried shielding the fiberop to reduce aperture |
| leakage; the resulting tethers were stiff and unwieldy, wrapped in |
| so many layers of ferroceramic that we were virtually waving the bots |
| around on the end of a stick. We'd tried cutting the tethers |
| entirely, sending the machines out to explore on their own, squinting |
| against the radiant blizzard and storing their findings for later |
| download; none had returned. We'd tried everything.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We can go in ourselves," James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Almost everything. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Right," Szpindel replied in a voice that couldn't mean |
| anything but <I>wrong</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's the only way to learn anything useful."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. Like how many seconds it would take your brain to turn |
| into synchrotron soup."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Our suits can be shielded."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, you mean like Mandy's drones?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'd really rather you didn't call me that," Bates |
| remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The point is, <I>Rorschach</I> kills you whether you're meat or |
| mechanical."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>My</I> point is that it kills meat <I>differently</I>," |
| James replied. "It takes longer."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shook his head. "You'd be good as dead in fifty |
| minutes. Even shielded. Even in the so-called cool zones."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And completely asymptomatic for three hours or more. And even |
| after that it would take days for us to actually die <I>and we'd be |
| back here long before then</I>, and the ship could patch us up just |
| like that. <I>We</I> even know that much, Isaac, it's right there in |
| ConSensus. And if we know it, you know it. So we shouldn't even be |
| having this argument."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's your solution? We saturate ourselves with radiation |
| every thirty hours and then I get to cut out the tumors and stitch |
| everyone's cells back together?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The pods are automatic. You wouldn't have to lift a finger."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not to mention the number those magnetic fields would do on |
| your <I>brain</I>. We'd be hallucinating from the moment we—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Faraday the suits."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah, so we go in deaf dumb and blind. Good idea."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We can let light pass. Infrared—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's all <I>EM</I>, Suze. Even if we blacked out our helmets |
| completely and used a camera feed, we'd get leakage where the wire |
| went through."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Some, yes. But it'd be better than—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jesus." A tremor sent spittle sailing from the corner of |
| Szpindel's mouth. "Let me talk to Mi—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I've discussed it with the rest of the gang, Isaac. We're all |
| agreed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>All</I> agreed? You don't have a working majority in there, |
| Suze. Just because you cut your brain into pieces doesn't mean they |
| each get a vote."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't see why not. We're each at least as sentient as you |
| are."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're all <I>you</I>. Just partitioned."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't seem to have any trouble treating Michelle as a |
| separate individual."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Michelle's—I mean, yes, you're all very different <I>facets</I>, |
| but there's only one original. Your alters—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Don't call us that</I>." Sascha erupted with a voice |
| cold as LOX. "<I>Ever</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel tried to pull back. "I didn't mean—you know I |
| didn't—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Sascha was gone. "What are you saying?" said the |
| softer voice in her wake. "Do you think I'm just, I'm just <I>Mom</I>, |
| play-acting? You think when we're together you're alone with <I>her</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Michelle," Szpindel said miserably. "No. What I |
| think—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Doesn't matter," Sarasti said. "We don't <I>vote</I> |
| here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He floated above us, visored and unreadable in the center of the |
| drum. None of us had seen him arrive. He turned slowly on his axis, |
| keeping us in view as we rotated around him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Prepping <I>Scylla</I>. Amanda needs two untethered grunts |
| with precautionary armament. Cams from one to a million Angstroms, |
| shielded tympanics, no autonomous circuitry. Platelet boosters, |
| dimenhydrinate and potassium iodide for everyone by 1350."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Everyone?" Bates asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti nodded. "Window opens four hours twenty-three." |
| He turned back down the spine</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not me," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti paused.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't participate in field ops," I reminded him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now you do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm a <I>synthesist</I>." He knew that. Of course he |
| knew, everyone did: you can't observe the system unless you stay |
| <I>outside </I>the system.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "On Earth you're a synthesist," he said. "In the |
| Kuiper you're a synthesist. Here you're mass. Do what you're told."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He disappeared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Welcome to the big picture," Bates said softly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at her as the rest of the group broke up. "You know |
| I—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're a long way out, Siri. Can't wait fourteen months for |
| feedback from your bosses, and you know it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She leapt from a standing start, arced smoothly through holograms |
| into the weightless core of the drum. But then she stopped herself, |
| as if distracted by some sudden insight. She grabbed a spinal |
| conduit and swung back to face me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You shouldn't sell yourself short," she said. "Or |
| Sarasti either. You're an observer, right? It's a safe bet there's |
| going to be a lot down there worth observing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "quot;Thanks," I said. But I already knew why Sarasti was |
| sending me into <I>Rorschach</I>, and there was more to it than |
| <I>observation</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Three valuable agents in harm's way. A decoy bought one-in-four odds |
| that an enemy would aim somewhere else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"The |
| Lord will take control of you. You will dance and shout and become a |
| different person."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">1 |
| Samuel 10:6</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We were probably fractured during most of our evolution," |
| James once told me, back when we were all still getting acquainted. |
| She tapped her temple. "There's a lot of room up here; a |
| modern brain can run dozens of sentient cores without getting too |
| crowded. And parallel multitasking has obvious survival advantages."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded. "Ten heads are better than one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Our integration may have actually occurred quite recently. |
| Some experts think we can still revert to multiples under the right |
| circumstances."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, of course. You're living proof."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook their head. "I'm not talking about <I>physical </I> |
| partitioning. We're the state of the art, certainly, but |
| theoretically surgery isn't even necessary. Simple stress could do |
| something like it, if it was strong enough. If it happened early in |
| childhood."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No kidding."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, in theory," James admitted, and changed into Sascha |
| who said, "Bull<I>shit in theory</I>. There's documented cases |
| as recently as fifty years ago."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Really." I resisted the temptation to look it up on my |
| inlays; the unfocused eyes can be a giveaway. "I didn't know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well it's not like anyone talks about it <I>now</I>. People |
| were fucking <I>barbarians</I> about multicores back then—called |
| it a <I>disorder</I>, treated it like some kind of disease. And |
| their idea of a cure was to keep one of the cores and murder all the |
| others. Not that they called it <I>murder</I>, of course. They |
| called it <I>integration</I> or some shit. That's what people did |
| back then: created other people to suck up all the abuse and torture, |
| then got rid of them when they weren't needed any more."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It hadn't been the tone most of us were looking for at an |
| ice-breaking party. James had gently eased back into the driver's |
| seat and the conversation had steered closer to community standards.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I hadn't heard any of the Gang use <I>alter</I> to describe each |
| other, then or since. It had seemed innocuous enough when Szpindel |
| had said it. I wondered why they'd taken such offence—and now, |
| floating alone in my tent with a few pre-op minutes to kill, there |
| was no one to see my eyes glaze.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Alter</I> carried baggage over a century old, ConSensus told me. |
| Sascha was right; there'd been a time when MCC was MPD, a <I>Disorder</I> |
| rather than a <I>Complex</I>, and it had <I>never</I> been induced |
| deliberately. According to the experts of that time, multiple |
| personalities arose spontaneously from unimaginable cauldrons of |
| abuse—fragmentary personae offered up to suffer rapes and |
| beatings while the child behind took to some unknowable sanctuary in |
| the folds of the brain. It was both survival strategy and ritual |
| self-sacrifice: powerless souls hacking themselves to pieces, |
| offering up quivering chunks of self in the desperate hope that the |
| vengeful gods called <I>Mom</I> or <I>Dad</I> might not be |
| insatiable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| None of it had been real, as it turned out. Or at least, none of it |
| had been confirmed. The experts of the day had been little more than |
| witch doctors dancing through improvised rituals: meandering |
| free-form interviews full of leading questions and nonverbal cues, |
| scavenger hunts through regurgitated childhoods. Sometimes a shot of |
| lithium or haloperidol when the beads and rattles didn't work. The |
| technology to map minds was barely off the ground; the technology to |
| edit them was years away. So the <I>therapists</I> and <I>psychiatrists</I> |
| poked at their victims and invented names for things they didn't |
| understand, and argued over the shrines of Freud and Klein and the |
| old Astrologers. Doing their very best to sound like practitioners |
| of Science. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Inevitably, it was Science that turned them all into road kill; MPD |
| was a half-forgotten fad even before the advent of synaptic rewiring. |
| But <I>alter</I> was a word from that time, and its resonance had |
| persisted. Among those who remembered the tale, <I>alter</I> was |
| codespeak for <I>betrayal</I> and <I>human sacrifice</I>. <I>Alter</I> |
| meant <I>cannon fodder</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagining the topology of the Gang's coexisting souls, I could see |
| why Sascha embraced the mythology. I could see why Susan let her. |
| After all, there was nothing implausible about the concept; the |
| Gang's very existence proved that much. And when you've been peeled |
| off from a pre-existing entity, sculpted from nonexistence straight |
| into adulthood—a mere fragment of personhood, without even a |
| full-time body to call your own—you can be forgiven a certain |
| amount of anger. Sure you're all equal, all in it together. Sure, |
| no persona is better than any other. Susan's still the only one with |
| a surname.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Better to direct that resentment at old grudges, real or imagined; |
| less problematic, at least, than taking it out on someone who shares |
| the same flesh.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I realized something else, too. Surrounded by displays documenting |
| the relentless growth of the leviathan beneath us, I could not only |
| see why Sascha had objected to the word; I could also see why Isaac |
| Szpindel, no doubt unconsciously, had spoken it in the first place.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| As far as Earth was concerned, everyone on <I>Theseus</I> was an |
| alter.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti stayed behind. He hadn't come with a backup.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There were the rest of us, though, crammed into the shuttle, embedded |
| in custom spacesuits so padded with shielding we might have been |
| deep-sea divers from a previous century. It was a fine balance; too |
| much shielding would have been worse than none at all, would split |
| primary particles into secondary ones, just as lethal and twice as |
| numerous. Sometimes you had to live with moderate exposure; the only |
| alternative was to embed yourself like a bug in lead. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We launched six hours from perigee. <I>Scylla</I> raced on ahead |
| like an eager child, leaving its parent behind. There was no |
| eagerness in the systems around me, though. Except for one: the |
| Gang of Four almost <I>shimmered</I> behind her faceplate. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Excited?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha answered: "Fuckin' <I>right</I>. <I>Field </I>work, |
| Keeton. First contact."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What if there's nobody there?" <I>What if there is, and |
| they don't like us?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Even better. We get a crack at their signs and cereal boxes |
| without their traffic cops leaning over our shoulders."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I wondered if she spoke for the others. I was pretty sure she didn't |
| speak for Michelle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Scylla</I>'s ports had all been sealed. There was no outside |
| view, nothing to see inside but bots and bodies and the tangled |
| silhouette swelling on my helmet HUD. But I could feel the radiation |
| slicing through our armor as if it were tissue paper. I could feel |
| the knotted crests and troughs of <I>Rorschach</I>'s magnetic field. |
| I could feel <I>Rorschach</I> itself, drawing nearer: the charred |
| canopy of some firestormed alien forest, more landscape than |
| artefact. I imagined titanic bolts of electricity arcing between its |
| branches. I imagined getting in the way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| What kind of creatures would choose to live in such a place?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You really think we'll get along," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James' shrug was all but lost under the armor. "Maybe not at |
| first. We may have gotten off on the wrong foot, we might have to |
| sort through all kinds of misunderstandings. But we'll figure each |
| other out eventually."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Evidently she thought that had answered my question.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The shuttle slewed; we bumped against each other like tenpins. |
| Thirty seconds of micromaneuvers brought us to a solid stop. A |
| cheery animation played across the HUD in greens and blues: the |
| shuttle's docking seal, easing through the membrane that served as |
| our entrance into <I>Rorschach</I>'s inflatable vestibule. Even as a |
| cartoon it looked vaguely pornographic.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates had been prepacked next to the airlock. She slid back the |
| inner door. "Everybody duck."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not an easy maneuver, swaddled in life-support and ferroceramic. |
| Helmets tilted and bumped. The grunts, flattened overhead like great |
| lethal cockroaches, hummed to life and disengaged from the ceiling. |
| They scraped past in the narrow headroom, bobbed cryptically to their |
| mistress, and exited stage left.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates closed the inner hatch. The lock cycled, opened again on an |
| empty chamber.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Everything nominal, according to the board. The drones waited |
| patiently in the vestibule. Nothing had jumped out at them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates followed them through. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We had to wait forever for the image. The baud rate was less than a |
| trickle. Words moved back and forth easily enough—"No |
| surprises so far," Bates reported in distorted Jews-harp |
| vibrato—but any picture was worth a million of them, and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There: through the eyes of the grunt behind we saw the grunt ahead |
| in motionless, grainy monochrome. It was a postcard from the past: |
| sight turned to sound, thick clumsy vibrations of methane bumping |
| against the hull. It took long seconds for each static-ridden image |
| to accrete on the HUD: grunts descending into the pit; grunts |
| emerging into <I>Rorschach</I>'s duodenum; a cryptic, hostile |
| cavescape in systematic increments. Down in the lower left-hand |
| corner of each image, timestamps and Teslas ran down the clock.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You give up a lot when you don't trust the EM spectrum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Looks good," Bates reported. "Going in."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In a friendlier universe machines would have cruised the boulevard, |
| sending perfect images in crystal resolution. Szpindel and the Gang |
| would be sipping coffee back in the drum, telling the grunts to take |
| a sample of this or get a close-up of that. In a friendlier |
| universe, I wouldn't even be here.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates appeared in the next postcard, emerging from the fistula. In |
| the next her back was to the camera, apparently panning the |
| perimeter. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In the one after that she was looking right at us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh...okay," she said. "Come on...down..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not so fast," Szpindel said. "How are you feeling?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Fine. A bit—odd, but..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Odd how?" Radiation sickness announced itself with |
| nausea, but unless we'd seriously erred in our calculations that |
| wouldn't happen for another hour or two. Not until well after we'd |
| all been lethally cooked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mild disorientation," Bates reported. "It's a bit |
| spooky in here, but—must be Grey Syndrome. It's tolerable."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at the Gang. The Gang looked at Szpindel. Szpindel |
| shrugged.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not gonna get any better," Bates said from afar. |
| "The clock is... clock is ticking, people. Get down here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We got.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not living, not by a long shot.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Haunted</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Even when the walls didn't move, they did: always at the corner of |
| the eye, that sense of crawling motion. Always at the back of the |
| mind the sense of being <I>watched</I>, the dread certainty of malign |
| and alien observers just out of sight. More than once I turned, |
| expecting to catch one of those phantoms in the open. All I ever saw |
| was a half-blind grunt floating down the passageway, or a wide-eyed |
| and jittery crewmate returning my stare. And the walls of some |
| glistening black lava tube with a hundred embedded eyes, all snapped |
| shut just the instant before. Our lights pushed the darkness back |
| perhaps twenty meters in either direction; beyond, mist and shadows |
| seethed. And the <I>sounds</I>—<I>Rorschach</I> creaked around |
| us like some ancient wooden hull trapped in pack ice. Electricity |
| hissed like rattlesnakes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You tell yourself it's mostly in your head. You remind yourself it's |
| well-documented, an inevitable consequence of meat and magnetism |
| brought too close together. High-energy fields release the ghosts |
| and the grays from your temporal lobe, dredge up paralyzing dread |
| from the midbrain to saturate the conscious mind. They fuck with |
| your motor nerves and make even dormant inlays sing like fine fragile |
| crystal.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Energy artefacts. That's all they are. You repeat that to yourself, |
| you repeat it so often it loses any pretense of rationality and |
| devolves into rote incantation, a spell to ward off evil spirits. |
| They're not real, these whispering voices just outside your helmet, |
| those half-seen creatures flickering at the edge of vision. They're |
| tricks of the mind, the same neurological smoke-and-mirrors that |
| convinced people throughout the ages that they were being haunted by |
| ghosts, abducted by aliens, hunted by—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —vampires—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and you wonder whether Sarasti really stayed behind or if he |
| was here all along, waiting for you...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Another spike," Bates warned as <I>Tesla</I> and <I>Seiverts</I> |
| surged on my HUD. "Hang on."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was installing the Faraday bell. Trying to. It should have been |
| simple enough; I'd already run the main anchor line down from the |
| vestibule to the flaccid sack floating in the middle of the |
| passageway. I was—that's right, something about a spring line. |
| To, to keep the bell centered. The wall glistened in my headlamp |
| like wet clay. Satanic runes sparkled in my imagination.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I jammed the spring line's pad against the wall. I could have sworn |
| the substrate <I>flinched</I>. I fired my thrust pistol, retreated |
| back to the center of the passage.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're here," James whispered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Something </I>was. I could feel it always behind me, no matter |
| where I turned. I could feel some great roaring darkness swirling |
| just out of sight, a ravenous <I>mouth</I> as wide as the tunnel |
| itself. Any moment now it would lunge forward at impossible speed and |
| engulf us all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're <I>beautiful</I>..." James said. There was no |
| fear in her voice at all. She sounded awestruck.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What? Where?" Bates never stopped turning, kept trying |
| to keep the whole three-sixty in sight at once. The drones under her |
| command wobbled restlessly to either side, armored parentheses |
| pointing down the passageway in opposite directions. "What do |
| you see?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not out <I>there</I>. In <I>here</I>. <I>Everywhere</I>. |
| Can't you see it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can't see anything," Szpindel said, his voice shaking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's in the EM fields," James said. "<I>That's</I> |
| how they communicate. The whole structure is full of <I>language</I>, |
| it's—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can't see <I>anything</I>," Szpindel repeated. His |
| breath echoed loud and fast over the link. "I'm <I>blind</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Shit.</I>" Bates swung on Szpindel. "How can |
| that—the radiation—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I d-don't think that's it.."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nine Tesla, and the ghosts were everywhere. I smelled asphalt and |
| honeysuckle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Keeton!" Bates called. "You with us?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Y-yeah." Barely. I was back at the bell, my hand on the |
| ripcord. Trying to ignore whatever kept tapping me on the shoulder.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Leave that! Get him outside!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No!" Szpindel floated helplessly in the passage, his |
| pistol bouncing against its wrist tether. "No, throw me |
| something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>It's all in your head. It's all in your—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Throw something! Anything!" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates hesitated. "You said you were bli—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Just do it!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates pulled a spare suit battery off her belt and lobbed it. |
| Szpindel reached, fumbled. The battery slipped from his grasp and |
| bounced off the wall.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'll be okay," he gasped. "Just get me into the |
| tent."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I yanked the cord. The bell inflated like a great gunmetal |
| marshmallow.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Everyone inside!" Bates ran her pistol with one hand, |
| grabbed Szpindel with the other. She handed him off to me and |
| slapped a sensor pod onto the skin of the tent. I pulled back the |
| shielded entrance flap as though pulling a scab from a wound. The |
| single molecule beneath, infinitely long, endlessly folded against |
| itself, swirled and glistened like a soap bubble.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Get him in. James! Get down here!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I pushed Szpindel through the membrane. It split around him with |
| airtight intimacy, hugged each tiny crack and contour as he passed |
| through.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>James</I>! Are you—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Get it off me!</I>" Harsh voice, raw and scared and |
| scary, as male as female could sound. Cruncher in control. "<I>Get |
| it off!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked back. Susan James' body tumbled slowly in the tunnel, |
| grasping its right leg with both hands.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>James!</I>" Bates sailed over to the other woman. |
| "Keeton! Help out!" She took the Gang by the arm. |
| "Cruncher? What's the problem?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>That!</I> You <I>blind</I>?" He wasn't just <I>grasping</I> |
| at the limb, I realized as I joined them. He was <I>tugging</I> at |
| it. <I>He was trying to pull it off.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something laughed hysterically, right inside my helmet.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Take his arm," Bates told me, taking his right one, trying |
| to pry the fingers from their death grip on the Gang's leg. |
| "Cruncher, <I>let go</I>. <I>Now.</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Get it off me!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's your leg, Cruncher." We wrestled our way towards the |
| diving bell. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's <I>not</I> my leg! Just <I>look</I> at it, how could |
| it—it's <I>dead</I>. It's <I>stuck</I> to me..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Almost there. "Cruncher, <I>listen</I>," Bates snapped. |
| "Are you with m—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Get it off!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We stuffed the Gang into the tent. Bates moved aside as I dove in |
| after them. Amazing, the way she held it together. Somehow she kept |
| the demons at bay, herded us to shelter like a border collie in a |
| thunderstorm. She was—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She wasn't following us in. She wasn't even <I>there</I>. I turned |
| to see her body floating outside the tent, one gloved hand grasping |
| the edge of the flap; but even under all those layers of Kapton and |
| Chromel and polycarbonate, even behind the distorted half-reflections |
| on her faceplate, I could tell that something was missing. All her |
| surfaces had just <I>disappeared.</I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This couldn't be Amanda Bates. The thing before me had no more |
| topology than a mannequin.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Amanda?" The Gang gibbered at my back, softly hysteric.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel: "What's happening?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'll stay out here," Bates said. She had no affect |
| whatsoever. "I'm dead anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Wha</I>—" Szpindel had lots. "You <I>will</I> |
| be, if you don't—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You leave me here," Bates said. "That's an order."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She sealed us in.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't the first time, not for me. I'd had invisible fingers |
| poking through my brain before, stirring up the muck, ripping open |
| the scabs. It was far more intense when <I>Rorschach</I> did it to |
| me, but Chelsea was more—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —precise, I guess you'd say.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Macramé, she called it: glial jumpstarts, cascade effects, |
| the splice and dice of critical ganglia. While I trafficked in the |
| reading of Human architecture, Chelsea <I>changed</I> it—finding |
| the critical nodes and nudging them just so, dropping a pebble into |
| some trickle at the headwaters of memory and watching the ripples |
| build to a great rolling cascade deep in the downstream psyche. She |
| could hotwire happiness in the time it took to fix a sandwich, |
| reconcile you with your whole childhood in the course of a lunch hour |
| or three.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Like so many other domains of human invention, this one had learned |
| to run without her. Human nature was becoming an assembly-line edit, |
| Humanity itself increasingly relegated from Production to product. |
| Still. For me, Chelsea's skill set recast a strange old world in an |
| entirely new light: the cut-and-paste of minds not for the greater |
| good of some abstract society, but for the simple selfish wants of |
| the individual.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Let me give you the gift of happiness," she said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm already pretty happy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'll make you happier. A TAT, on me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tat?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Transient Attitudinal Tweak. I've still got privileges at |
| Sax."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I've been tweaked plenty. Change one more synapse and I might |
| turn into someone else."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's ridiculous and you know it. Or every experience you had |
| would turn you into a different person."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought about that. "Maybe it does."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But she wouldn't let it go, and even the strongest anti-happiness |
| argument was bound to be an uphill proposition; so one afternoon |
| Chelsea fished around in her cupboards and dredged up a hair-net |
| studded with greasy gray washers. The net was a superconducting |
| spiderweb, fine as mist, that mapped the fields of merest thought. |
| The washers were ceramic magnets that bathed the brain in fields of |
| their own. Chelsea's inlays linked to a base station that played |
| with the interference patterns between the two.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They used to need a machine the size of a bathroom just to |
| house the magnets." She laid me back on the couch and stretched |
| the mesh across my skull. "That's the only outright miracle you |
| get with a portable setup like this. We can find hot spots, and we |
| can even zap 'em if they need zapping, but TMS effects fade after a |
| while. We'll have to go to a clinic for anything permanent."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we're fishing for what, exactly? Repressed memories?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No such thing." She grinned in toothy reassurance. |
| "There are only memories we choose to ignore, or kinda think |
| <I>around</I>, if you know what I mean."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought this was the gift of happiness. Why—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She laid a fingertip across my lips. "Believe it or not, |
| Cyggers, people sometimes choose to ignore even <I>good</I> memories. |
| Like, say, if they enjoyed something they didn't think they should. |
| Or—" she kissed my forehead— "if they don't |
| think they <I>deserve</I> to be happy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we're going for—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Potluck. You can never tell 'til you get a bite. Close your |
| eyes." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A soft hum started up somewhere between my ears. Chelsea's voice led |
| me on through the darkness. "Now keep in mind, memories aren't |
| historical archives. They're—improvisations, really. A lot |
| of the stuff you associate with a particular event might be factually |
| wrong, no matter how clearly you remember it. The brain has a funny |
| habit of building composites. Inserting details after the fact. But |
| that's not to say your memories aren't <I>true</I>, okay? They're |
| an honest reflection of how you saw the world, and every one of them |
| went into shaping how you <I>see</I> it. But they're not |
| photographs. More like impressionist paintings. Okay?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Okay."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah," she said. "There's something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Functional cluster. Getting a lot of low-level use but not |
| enough to intrude into conscious awareness. Let's just see what |
| happens when we—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And I was ten years old, and I was home early and I'd just let myself |
| into the kitchen and the smell of burned butter and garlic hung in |
| the air. Dad and Helen were fighting in the next room. The flip-top |
| on our kitchen-catcher had been left up, which was sometimes enough |
| to get Helen going all by itself. But they were fighting about |
| something else; Helen <I>only wanted what was best for all of us</I> |
| but Dad said <I>there were limits</I> and <I>this was not the way to |
| go about it</I>. And Helen said <I>you don't know what it's like you |
| hardly ever even </I>see<I> him</I> and then I knew they were |
| fighting about me. Which in and of itself was nothing unusual.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| What really scared me was that for the first time ever, Dad was |
| fighting <I>back</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You do not <I>force</I> something like that onto someone. |
| Especially without their knowledge." My father never |
| shouted—his voice was as low and level as ever—but it was |
| colder than I'd ever heard, and hard as iron.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's just <I>garbage</I>," Helen said. "Parents |
| <I>always</I> make decisions for their children, in their best |
| interests, especially when it comes to medical iss—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>This is not a medical issue</I>." This time my father's |
| voice <I>did</I> rise. "It's—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not a medical issue! That's a new height of denial even for |
| you! They cut out half his <I>brain</I> in case you missed it! Do |
| you think he can recover from that without help? Is that more of |
| your father's <I>tough love</I> shining through? Why not just deny |
| him food and water while you're at it!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If mu-ops were called for they'd have been prescribed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt my face scrunching at the unfamiliar word. Something small |
| and white beckoned from the open garbage pail.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jim, be <I>reasonable.</I> He's so <I>distant</I>, he barely |
| even <I>talks </I>to me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They said it would take time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But two years! There's nothing wrong with helping nature along |
| a little, we're not even talking black market. It's |
| over-the-counter, for God's sake!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's not the point."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| An empty pill bottle. That's what one of them had thrown out, before |
| forgetting to close the lid. I salvaged it from the kitchen discards |
| and sounded out the label in my head.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe the <I>point</I> should be that someone who's barely home |
| three months of the year has got his bloody nerve passing judgment on |
| <I>my </I>parenting skills. If you want a say in how he's raised, |
| then you can damn well pay some dues first. Until then, just fuck |
| right off."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You will not put that shit into my son <I>ever again</I>," |
| my father said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Times New Roman, serif"><FONT SIZE=4 STYLE="font-size: 15pt">Bondfast™ |
| Formula IV</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| -Opioid Receptor Promoters / Maternal Response Stimulant</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-inside: avoid; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Times New Roman, serif"><FONT SIZE=3>"Strengthening |
| ties between Mother and Child since 2042"</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah? And how are you going to stop me, you little geek? You |
| can't even make the time to find out what's going on in your own |
| family; you think you can control me all the way from fucking orbit? |
| You think—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Suddenly, nothing came from the living room but soft choking sounds. |
| I peeked around the corner.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My father had Helen by the throat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think," he growled, "that I can stop you from doing |
| anything to Siri ever again, if I have to. And I think you know |
| that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And then she saw me. And then he did. And my father took his hand |
| from around my mother's neck, and his face was utterly unreadable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But there was no mistaking the triumph on hers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was up off the couch, the skullcap clenched in one hand. Chelsea |
| stood wide-eyed before me, the butterfly still as death on her |
| cheekbone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She took my hand. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You—you saw that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, of course not. It can't read minds. But that obviously— |
| wasn't a happy memory."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It wasn't all that bad."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt sharp, disembodied pain from somewhere nearby, like an ink |
| spot on a white tablecloth. After a moment I fixed it: teeth in my |
| lip.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She ran her hand up my arm. "It really stressed you out. Your |
| vitals were—are you okay?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, of course. No big deal." Tasting salt. "I am |
| curious about something, though."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ask me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why would you do this to me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Because we can make it go <I>away</I>, Cygnus. That's the |
| whole point. Whatever that was, whatever you didn't like about it, |
| we know where it is now. We can go back in and damp it out just like |
| <I>that</I>. And then we've got <I>days</I> to get it removed |
| permanently, if that's what you want. Just put the cap back on and—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She put her arms around me, drew me close. She smelled like sand, |
| and sweat. I loved the way she smelled. For a while, I could feel a |
| little bit safe. For a while I could feel like the bottom wasn't |
| going to drop out at any moment. Somehow, when I was with Chelsea, I |
| <I>mattered</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I wanted her to hold me forever. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think so," I said<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No?" She blinked, looked up at me. "Why ever <I>not</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged. "You know what they say about people who don't |
| remember the past."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Predators |
| run for their dinner. Prey run for their lives."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Old |
| Ecologist's Proverb</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were blind and helpless, jammed into a fragile bubble behind enemy |
| lines. But finally the whisperers were silent. The monsters had |
| stayed beyond the covers. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And Amanda Bates was out there with them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What the fuck," Szpindel breathed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The eyes behind his faceplate were active and searching. "You |
| can see?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded. "What happened to Bates? Her suit breach?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think so."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then why'd she say she was dead? What—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She meant it <I>literally</I>," I told him. "Not |
| <I>I'm as good as dead</I> or <I>I'm going to die</I>. She meant |
| dead <I>now</I>. Like she was a talking corpse."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do—" <I>you know?</I> Stupid question. His |
| face ticced and trembled in the helmet. "That's crazy, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Define <I>crazy</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang floated quietly, cheek-to-jowl behind Szpindel in the |
| cramped enclosure. Cruncher had stopped obsessing about the leg as |
| soon as we'd sealed up. Or maybe he'd simply been overridden; I |
| thought I saw facets of Susan in the twitching of those thick gloved |
| fingers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel's breath echoed second-hand over the link. "If Bates |
| is dead, then so are we."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe not. We wait out the spike, we get out of here. |
| Besides," I added, "she wasn't dead. She only said she |
| was."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Fuck," Szpindel reached out and pressed his gloved palm |
| against the skin of the tent. He felt back and forth along the |
| fabric. "Someone <I>did</I> put out a transducer—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Eight o'clock," I said. "About a meter." |
| Szpindel's hand came to rest across the wall from the pod. My HUD |
| flooded with second-hand numbers, vibrated down his arm and relayed |
| to our suits. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Still five Tesla out there. Falling, though. The tent expanded |
| around us as if breathing, shrank back in the next second as some |
| transient low-pressure front moved past.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "When did your sight come back?" I wondered. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Soon as we came inside." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sooner. You saw the battery."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Fumbled it." He grunted. "Not that I'm much less of |
| a spaz even when I'm <I>not</I> blind, eh? Bates! You out there?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You reached for it. You almost caught it. That wasn't blind |
| chance."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not blind chance. Blind<I>sight</I>. Amanda? Respond, |
| please."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Blindsight?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nothing wrong with the receptors," he said distractedly. |
| "Brain processes the image but it can't access it. Brain stem |
| takes over."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Your brainstem can see but you <I>can't</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Something like that. Shut up and let me—Amanda, can you |
| hear me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "...No..." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not from anyone in the tent, that voice. It had shivered down |
| Szpindel's arm, barely audible, with the rest of the data. From |
| <I>outside</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Major Mandy!" Szpindel exclaimed. "You're alive!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "....no..." A whisper like white noise.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well you're talking to us, so you sure as shit ain't <I>dead</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel and I exchanged looks. "What's the problem, Major?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Silence. The Gang bumped gently against the wall behind us, all |
| facets opaque.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Major Bates? Can you hear me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No." It was a dead voice— sedated, trapped in a |
| fishbowl, transmitted through limbs and lead at a three-digit baud |
| rate. But it was definitely Bates' voice.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Major, you've got to get in here," Szpindel said. "Can |
| you come inside?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "...No...".</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you injured? Are you pinned by something?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "..N—no."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe not her voice, after all. Maybe just her vocal cords. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Look. Amanda, it's dangerous. It's too damn hot out there, do |
| you understand? You—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm not out here," said the voice. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Where are you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "...nowhere."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at Szpindel. Szpindel looked at me. Neither of us spoke.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James did. At long last, and softly: "And <I>what</I> are you, |
| Amanda?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you <I>Rorschach</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Here in the belly of the beast, it was so easy to believe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "N...nothing." The voice was flat and mechanical. "I'm |
| nothing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're saying you don't exist?" Szpindel said slowly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The tent breathed around us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then how can you speak?" Susan asked the voice. "If |
| you don't exist, what are we talking to?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Something...else." A sigh. A breath of static. "Not |
| me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shit," Szpindel muttered. His surfaces brightened with |
| resolve and sudden insight. He pulled his hand from the wall; my HUD |
| thinned instantly. "Her brain's frying. We gotta get her |
| inside." He reached for the release. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I put out my own hand. "The spike—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Crested already, commissar. We're past the worst of it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you saying it's safe?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's lethal. It's <I>always</I> lethal, and she's <I>out there</I> |
| in it, and she could do some serious damage to herself in her pres—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something bumped the tent from the outside. Something grabbed the |
| outer catch and <I>pulled</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Our shelter opened like an eye. Amanda Bates looked in at us through |
| the exposed membrane. "I'm reading three point eight," she |
| said. "That's tolerable, right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody moved.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Come <I>on</I>, people. Break's over."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ama—" Szpindel stared. "Are you okay?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "In here? Not likely. But we've got a job to do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you—exist?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What kind of stupid question is that? Szpindel, how's this |
| field strength? Can we work in it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Uh..." He swallowed audibly. "Maybe we should abort, |
| Major. That spike was—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "According to my readings, the spike is pretty much over. And |
| we've got less than two hours to finish setting up, run our ground |
| truths, and get out of here. Can we do that without hallucinating?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think we'll shake the heebie-jeebies," Szpindel |
| admitted. "But we shouldn't have to worry about —extreme |
| effects— until another spike hits."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Good."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Which could be any time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We weren't hallucinating," James said quietly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We can discuss it later," Bates said. "Now—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There was a pattern there," James insisted. "In the |
| fields. In my head. <I>Rorschach</I> was talking. Maybe not to us, |
| but it was talking."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Good." Bates pushed herself back to let us pass. "Maybe |
| now we can finally learn to talk back."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe we can learn to <I>listen</I>," James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We fled like frightened children with brave faces. We left a base |
| camp behind: Jack, still miraculously functional in its vestibule; a |
| tunnel into the haunted mansion; forlorn magnetometers left to die in |
| the faint hope they might not. Crude pyronometers and thermographs, |
| antique radiation-proof devices that measured the world through the |
| flex and stretch of metal tabs and etched their findings on rolls of |
| plastic. Glow-globes and diving bells and guide ropes strung one to |
| another. We left it all behind, and promised to return in thirty-six |
| hours if we lived so long.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Inside each of us, infinitesimal lacerations were turning our cells |
| to mush. Plasma membranes sprang countless leaks. Overwhelmed |
| repair enzymes clung desperately to shredded genes and barely delayed |
| the inevitable. Anxious to avoid the rush, patches of my intestinal |
| lining began flaking away before the rest of the body had a chance to |
| die.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time we docked with <I>Theseus</I> both Michelle and I were |
| feeling nauseous. (The rest of the Gang, oddly, was not; I had no |
| idea how that was possible.) The others would be presenting the same |
| symptoms within minutes. Without intervention we would all be |
| vomiting our guts out for the following two days. Then the body |
| would pretend to recover; for perhaps a week we would feel no pain |
| and have no future. We would walk and talk and move like any living |
| thing, and perhaps convince ourselves that we were immortal after |
| all. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Then we would collapse into ourselves, rotted from the inside out. |
| We would bleed from our eyes and mouths and assholes, and if any God |
| was merciful we would die before splitting open like rotten fruit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But of course <I>Theseus</I>, our redeemer, would save us from such a |
| fate. We filed from the shuttle into a great balloon that Sarasti |
| had erected to capture our personal effects; we shed our contaminated |
| space suits and clothing and emerged naked into the spine. We passed |
| single-file through the drum, the Flying Dead in formation. Jukka |
| Sarasti—discreetly distant on the turning floor—leapt up |
| in our wake and disappeared aft, to feed our radioactive cast-offs |
| into the decompiler.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Into the crypt. Our coffins lay open across the rear bulkhead. We |
| sank gratefully and wordlessly into their embrace. Bates coughed |
| blood as the lids came down.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My bones hummed as the Captain began to shut me off. I went to sleep |
| a dead man. I had only theory and the assurances of fellow machinery |
| that I would ever be born again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Keeton, come forth</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I woke up ravenous. Faint voices drifted forward from the drum. I |
| floated in my pod for a few moments, eyes closed, savoring absences: |
| no pain, no nausea. No terrifying subliminal sense of one's own body |
| sloughing incrementally to mush. Weakness, and hunger; otherwise I |
| felt fine.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I opened my eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something like an arm. Grey and glistening, far too— too |
| <I>attenuate</I> to be human. No hand at its tip. Too many joints, |
| a limb broken in a dozen places. It extended from a body barely |
| visible over the lip of the pod, a suggestion of dark bulk and other |
| limbs in disjoint motion. It hovered motionless before me, as if |
| startled in the midst of some shameful act. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time I had breath enough to cry out, it had whipped back out |
| of sight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I erupted from the pod, eyes everywhere. Now they saw nothing: an |
| empty crypt, a naked note-taker. The mirrored bulkhead reflected |
| vacant pods to either side. I called up ConSensus: all systems |
| nominal. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>It didn't reflect</I>, I remembered. <I>The mirror didn't show |
| it</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I headed aft, heart still pounding. The drum opened around me, |
| Szpindel and the Gang conversing in low tones aft. Szpindel glanced |
| up and waved a trembling hand in greeting.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You need to check me out," I called. My voice wasn't |
| nearly so steady as I'd hoped.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Admitting you have a problem is the first step," Szpindel |
| called back. "Just don't expect miracles." He turned back |
| to the Gang; James on top, they sat in a diagnostic couch staring at |
| some test pattern shimmering on the rear bulkhead. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I grabbed the tip of a stairway and pulled myself down. Coriolis |
| pushed me sideways like a flag in the breeze. "I'm either |
| hallucinating or there's something on board."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're hallucinating."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm <I>serious</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So am I. Take a number. Wait your turn."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He <I>was</I> serious. Once I forced myself to calm down and read |
| the signs, I could see he wasn't even surprised.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Guess you're pretty hungry after all that exhausting lying |
| around, eh?" Szpindel waved at the galley. "Eat |
| something. Be with you in a few minutes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I forced myself to work up my latest synopsis while I ate, but that |
| only took half a mind; the other still shivered in residual thrall to |
| fight-flight. I tried to distract it by tapping the BioMed feed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was <I>real</I>," James was saying. "We all saw |
| it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>No. Couldn't have been</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel cleared his throat. "Try this one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The feed showed what she saw: a small black triangle on a white |
| background. In the next instant it shattered into a dozen identical |
| copies, and a dozen dozen. The proliferating brood rotated around |
| the center screen, geometric primitives ballroom-dancing in precise |
| formation, each sprouting smaller triangles from its tips, |
| fractalizing, rotating, <I>evolving</I> into an infinite, intricate |
| tilework...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A sketchpad, I realized. An interactive eyewitness reconstruction, |
| without the verbiage. Susan's own pattern-matching wetware reacted |
| to what she saw— <I>no, there were more of them; no, the |
| orientation's wrong; yes, that's it, but bigger</I>— and |
| Szpindel's machine picked those reactions right out of her head and |
| amended the display in realtime. It was a big step up from that |
| half-assed workaround called <I>language.</I> The easily-impressed |
| might have even called it mind-reading.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't, though. It was all just feedback and correlation. It |
| doesn't take a telepath to turn one set of patterns into another. |
| Fortunately.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's it! That's <I>it</I>!" Susan cried.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The triangles had iterated out of existence. Now the display was |
| full of interlocking asymmetrical pentagrams, a spiderweb of fish |
| scales.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't tell us that's <I>random noise</I>," she said |
| triumphantly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," Szpindel said, "It's a Klüver constant."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's a hallucination, Suze."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of <I>course</I>. But something <I>planted</I> it in our head, |
| right? And—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was in your head all along. It was in your head the day you |
| were born."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's an artefact of deep brain structure. Even congenitally |
| blind people see them sometimes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "None of us have seen them before. <I>Ever</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I believe you. But there's no <I>information</I> there, eh? |
| That wasn't <I>Rorschach</I> talking, it was just—interference. |
| Like everything else."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But it was so vivid! Not that flickering corner-of-your-eye |
| stuff we saw everywhere. This was <I>solid</I>. It was realer than |
| real."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's how you can tell it wasn't. Since you don't actually |
| <I>see</I> it, there's no messy eyeball optics to limit resolution." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh," James said, and then, softly: "Shit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. Sorry." And then, "Any time you're ready."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked up; Szpindel was waving me over. James rose from her chair, |
| but it was Michelle who gave him a quick disconsolate squeeze and |
| Sascha who grumbled past me on her way to their tent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time I reached him Szpindel had unfolded the couch into a |
| half-cot. "Lie down."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I did. "I wasn't talking about back in <I>Rorschach</I>, you |
| know. I meant <I>here</I>. I saw something right now. When I woke |
| up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Raise your left hand," he said. Then: "<I>Just</I> |
| your left, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I lowered my right, winced at the pinprick. "That's a bit |
| primitive."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He eyed the blood-filled cuvette between his thumb and forefinger: a |
| shivering ruby teardrop the size of a fingernail. "Wet sample's |
| still best for some things."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Aren't the pods supposed to do everything?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel nodded. "Call it a quality-control test. Keep the |
| ship on its toes." He dropped the sample onto the nearest |
| countertop. The teardrop flattened and burst; the surface drank my |
| blood as if parched. Szpindel smacked his lips. "Elevated |
| cholinesterase inhibitors in the ret. Yum."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For all I knew, my blood results actually <I>did</I> taste good to |
| the man. Szpindel didn't just read results; he <I>felt</I> them, |
| smelled and saw and <I>experienced</I> each datum like drops of |
| citrus on the tongue. The whole BioMed subdrum was but a part of the |
| Szpindel prosthesis: an extended body with dozens of different |
| sensory modes, forced to talk to a brain that knew only five.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No wonder he'd bonded with Michelle. He was almost synesthesiac |
| himself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You spent a bit longer in there than the rest of us," he |
| remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's significant?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A jerking shrug. "Maybe your organs got a bit more cooked than |
| ours. Maybe you just got a delicate constitution. Your pod would've |
| caught anything—imminent, so I figure—ah."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Some cells along your brainpan going into overdrive. More in |
| your bladder and kidney."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tumors?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What you expect? <I>Rorschach</I>'s no rejuve spa."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But the pod—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel grimaced; his idea of a reassuring smile. "Repairs |
| ninety-nine point nine percent of the damage, sure. By the time you |
| get to the last zero-point-one, you're into diminishing returns. |
| These're <I>small</I>, commissar. Chances are your own body'll take |
| care of 'em. If not, we know where they live."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The ones in my brain. Could they be causing—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not a chance." He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. |
| "Course, cancer's not all that thing did to us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What I saw. Up in the crypt. It had these multijointed arms |
| from a central mass. Big as a person, maybe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel nodded. "Get used to it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The others are seeing these things?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I doubt it. Everyone has a different take, like—" |
| his twitching face conveyed <I>Dare I say it?</I> "—<I>Rorschach</I> |
| blots."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I was expecting hallucinations in the field," I admitted, |
| "but up here?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "TMS effects—" Szpindel snapped his fingers— |
| "they're <I>sticky</I>, eh? Neurons get kicked into one state, |
| take a while to come unstuck. You never got a TAT? Well-adjusted |
| boy like you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Once or twice," I said. "Maybe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Same principle."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So I'm going to keep seeing this stuff."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Party line is they fade over time. Week or two you're back to |
| normal. But out here, with <I>that</I> thing..." He shrugged. |
| "Too many variables. Not the least of which is, I assume we'll |
| keep going <I>back</I> until Sarasti says otherwise."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But they're basically magnetic effects."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably. Although I'm not betting on anything where <I>that</I> |
| fucker's concerned."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Could something else be causing them?" I asked. |
| "Something on <I>this</I> ship?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like what?'</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know. Leakage in <I>Theseus</I>' magnetic shielding, |
| maybe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not normally. Course, we've all got little implanted networks |
| in our heads, eh? And you've got a whole hemisphere of prosthetics |
| up there, who knows what kind of <I>side</I>-<I>effects</I> those |
| might let you in for. Why? <I>Rorschach</I> not a good enough |
| reason for you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I saw them before,</I> I might have said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And then Szpindel would say <I>Oh, when? Where?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And maybe I'd reply <I>When I was spying on your private life</I>, |
| and any chance of <I>noninvasive observation </I>would be flushed |
| down to the atoms.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's probably nothing. I've just been—jumpy lately. |
| Thought I saw something weird in the spinal bundle, back before we |
| landed on <I>Rorschach</I>. Just for a second, you know, and it |
| disappeared as soon as I focused on it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Multijointed arms with a central mass?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "God no. Just a flicker, really. If it was anything at all, it |
| was probably just Amanda's rubber ball floating around up there."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably." Szpindel seemed almost amused. "Couldn't |
| hurt to check for leakage in the shielding, though. Just in case. |
| Not like we need something <I>else</I> making us see things, eh?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shook my head at remembered nightmares. "How are the others?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Gang's fine, if a bit disappointed. Haven't seen the Major." |
| He shrugged. "Maybe she's avoiding me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It hit her pretty hard."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No worse than the rest of us, really. She might not even |
| remember it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How—how could she possibly believe she didn't even |
| <I>exist</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel shook his head. "Didn't believe it. <I>Knew</I> it. |
| For a fact."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But how—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Charge gauge on your car, right? Sometimes the contacts |
| corrode. Readout freezes on empty, so you think it's empty. What |
| else you supposed to think? Not like you can go in and count the |
| electrons."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're saying the brain's got some kind of <I>existence gauge</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Brain's got all <I>kinds</I> of gauges. You can <I>know</I> |
| you're blind even when you're not; you can <I>know</I> you can see, |
| even when you're blind. And yeah, you can <I>know</I> you don't |
| exist even when you do. It's a long list, commissar. Cotard's, |
| Anton's, Damascus Disease. Just for starters."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He hadn't said <I>blindsight</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What was it like?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like?" Although he knew exactly what I meant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did your arm— move by itself? When it reached for that |
| battery?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh. Nah. You're still in control, you just—you get a |
| feeling, is all. A <I>sense</I> of where to reach. One part of the |
| brain playing charades with another, eh?" He gestured at the |
| couch. "Get off. Seen enough of your ugly guts for now. And |
| send up Bates if you can find where she's hiding. Probably back at |
| Fab building a bigger army."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The misgivings glinted off him like sunlight. "You have a |
| problem with her," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He started to deny it, then remembered who he was talking to. "Not |
| personally. Just—human node running mechanical infantry. |
| Electronic reflexes slaved to meat reflexes. You tell me where the |
| weak spot is."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Down in <I>Rorschach,</I> I'd have to say <I>all</I> the links |
| are pretty weak."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not talking about <I>Rorschach</I>," Szpindel said. "We |
| go there. What stops them from coming here?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe they haven't arrived yet," he admitted. "But |
| when they do, I'm betting we'll be going up against something bigger |
| than anaerobic microbes." When I didn't answer he continued, |
| his voice lowered. "And anyway, Mission Control didn't know |
| shit about <I>Rorschach</I>. They thought they were sending us some |
| place where drones could do all the heavy lifting. But they just |
| hate not being in command, eh? Can't admit the grunts're smarter |
| than the generals. So our defenses get compromised for political |
| appearances—not like <I>that's</I> any kinda news—and I'm |
| no jarhead but it strikes me as real bad strategy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I remembered Amanda Bates, midwifing the birth of her troops. <I>I'm |
| more of a safety precaution....</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Amanda—" I began.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like Mandy fine. Nice mammal. But if we're cruising into a |
| combat situation I don't want my ass covered by some network held |
| back by its weakest link." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If you're going to be surrounded by a swarm of killer robots, |
| maybe—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, people keep saying that. Can't trust the machines. |
| Luddites love to go on about computer malfunctions, and how many |
| accidental wars we might have prevented because a human had the final |
| say. But funny thing, commissar; nobody talks about how many |
| intentional wars got <I>started</I> for the same reason. You're |
| still writing those postcards to posterity?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded, and didn't wince inwardly. It was just Szpindel.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, feel free to stick this conversation in your next one. |
| For all the good it'll do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you are a prisoner of war.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You've got to admit you saw it coming. You've been crashing tech and |
| seeding biosols for a solid eighteen months; that's a good run by |
| anyone's standards. Realist saboteurs do not, as a rule, enjoy long |
| careers. Everyone gets caught eventually.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't always thus. There was a day you might have even hoped for |
| a peaceful retirement. But then they brought the vampires back from |
| the Pleistocene and Great Grieving Ganga did <I>that</I> ever turn |
| the balance of power upside down. Those fuckers are always ten steps |
| ahead. It only makes sense; after all, hunting people is what |
| bloodsuckers evolved to <I>do</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There's this line from an early pop-dyn textbook, really old, maybe |
| even TwenCen. It's something of a mantra—maybe <I>prayer</I> |
| would be a better word—among those in your profession. |
| <I>Predators run for their dinner</I>, it goes. <I>Prey run for |
| their lives.</I> The moral is supposed to be that on average, the |
| hunted escape the hunters because they're more motivated. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe that was true when it all just came down to who ran faster. |
| Doesn't seem to hold when the strategy involves tactical foresight |
| and double-reverse mind fucks, though. The vampires win every time.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And now you're caught, and while it may have been vampires that set |
| the trap, it was regular turncoat baseline humans who pulled the |
| trigger. For six hours now you've been geckoed to the wall of some |
| unnamed unlisted underground detention facility, watching as some of |
| those selfsame <I>humans</I> played games with your boyfriend and |
| co-conspirator. These are not your average games. They involve |
| pliers, and glowing wires, and body parts that were not designed to |
| detach. You wish, by now, that your lover were dead, like the two |
| others in your cell whose parts are scattered about the room. But |
| they're not letting that happen. They're having too much fun.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That's what it all comes down to. This is not an interrogation; |
| there are less invasive ways to get more reliable answers. These are |
| simply a few more sadistic thugs with Authority, killing time and |
| other things, and you can only cry and squeeze your eyes tight and |
| whimper like an animal even though they haven't laid a hand on you |
| yet. You can only wish they hadn't saved you for last, because you |
| know what that means.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But suddenly your tormentors stop in mid-game and cock their heads as |
| if listening to some collective inner voice. Presumably it tells |
| them to take you off the wall, bring you into the next room, and sit |
| you down at one of two gel-padded chairs on opposite sides of a smart |
| desk, because this is what they do—far more gently than you'd |
| expect—before retiring. You can also assume that whoever has |
| given these instructions is both powerful and displeased, because all |
| the arrogant sadistic cockiness has drained from their faces in the |
| space of a heartbeat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You sit and wait. The table glows with soft, cryptic symbols that |
| would be of no earthly interest to you even if you could understand |
| them, even if they contained the very secret of the vampires |
| themselves. Some small part of you wonders if this latest |
| development might be cause for hope; the rest of you doesn't dare |
| believe it. You hate yourself for caring about your own survival |
| when chunks of your friends and allies are still warm on the other |
| side of the wall.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A stocky Amerind woman appears in the room with you, clad in |
| nondescript military weave. Her hair is buzzed short, her throat |
| veined with the faint mesh of a sub-q antennae. Your brain stem sees |
| that she is ten meters tall, even though some impertinent gelatinous |
| overlay insists that she is of only average height.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The name tag on her left breast says <I>Bates</I>. You see no sign |
| of rank.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Bates </I>extracts a weapon from its sheath on her thigh. You |
| flinch, but she does not point it at you. She sets it on the desk, |
| easily within your reach, and sits across from you.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A microwave pistol. Fully charged, unlocked. On its lowest setting |
| it causes sunburn and nausea. On its highest it flash-boils brains |
| in the skull. At any setting between, it inflicts pain and injury in |
| increments as fine as your imagination.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Your imagination has been retooled for great sensitivity along such |
| scales. You stare numbly at the gun, trying to figure the trick. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Two of your friends are dead," Bates says, as though you |
| haven't just watched them die. "Irrecoverably so."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Irrecoverably dead. Good one.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We could reconstitute the bodies, but the brain damage..." |
| Bates clears her throat as if uncomfortable, as if embarrassed. It's |
| a surprisingly human gesture for a monster. "We're trying to |
| save the other one. No promises.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We need information," she says, cutting to the chase.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of course. What came before was psychology, softening-up. Bates is |
| the good cop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I've got nothing to tell you," you manage. It's ten |
| percent defiance, ninety percent deduction: they wouldn't have been |
| able to catch you in the first place unless they already knew |
| everything.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then we need an arrangement," Bates says. "We need |
| to come to some kind of accommodation."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She has to be kidding.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Your incredulity must be showing. Bates addresses it: "I'm not |
| completely unsympathetic. My gut doesn't much like the idea of |
| swapping reality for simulation, and it doesn't buy that |
| what-is-truth spin the Body Economic sells to get around it. Maybe |
| there's reason to be scared. Not my problem, not my job, just my |
| opinion and it could be wrong. But if we kill each other in the |
| meantime, we don't find out either way. It's unproductive."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You see the dismembered bodies of your friends. You see pieces on |
| the floor, still a little bit alive, and this cunt has the nerve to |
| talk about <I>productivity</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We didn't start it," you say.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know and I don't care. Like I said, it's not my job." |
| Bates jerks a thumb over her shoulder at a door in the wall behind |
| her, the door she must have entered through. "In there," |
| she says, "are the ones who killed your friends. They've been |
| disarmed. When you go through that door the room will go offline and |
| remain unmonitored for a period of sixty seconds. Nobody besides |
| yourself will ever hold you accountable for whatever happens in there |
| during that time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It's a trick. It has to be.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you have to lose?" Bates wonders. "We can |
| already do anything we want to you. It's not like we need you to |
| give us an excuse."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Hesitantly, you take the gun. Bates doesn't stop you.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She's right, you realize. You have absolutely nothing to lose. You |
| stand and, suddenly fearless, point the weapon at her face. "Why |
| go in there? I can kill you right <I>here</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shrugs. "You could try. Waste of an opportunity, if you |
| ask me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So I go in there, and I come out in sixty seconds, and then |
| what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then we talk."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We just—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Think of it as a gesture of good faith," she says. |
| "Restitution, even." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The door opens at your approach, closes in your wake. And there they |
| are, all four of them, spread up across the wall like a chorus line |
| of Christs on crosses. There's no gleam in those eyes <I>now</I>. |
| There's only a bright animal terror and the reflection of turned |
| tables. Two of the Christs stain their pants when you look them in |
| the eye.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| What's left? Maybe fifty seconds?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It's not a lot. You could have done so much more with just a little |
| extra time. But it's enough, and you don't want to impose on the |
| good graces of this Bates woman.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because she may at last be someone you can deal with.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Under other circumstances, Lieutenant Amanda Bates would have been |
| court-martialed and executed within the month. No matter that the |
| four who'd died had been guilty of multiple counts of rape, torture, |
| and homicide; that's just what people <I>did</I> in wartime. It's |
| what they'd always done. There was nothing <I>polite</I> about war, |
| no honorable code beyond the chain of command and the circling of |
| wagons. Deal with indiscretions if you must; punish the guilty if |
| you have to, for appearance if nothing else. But for God's sake |
| close the doors first. Never give your enemy the satisfaction of |
| seeing discord in the ranks, show them nothing but unity and |
| flinty-eyed resolve. There may be murderers and rapists in our |
| midst, but by God they're <I>our</I> murderers and rapists.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You certainly don't give right of revenge to some terrorist twat with |
| over a hundred friendly scalps on her belt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Still, it was hard to argue with results: a negotiated ceasefire |
| with the third-largest Realist franchise in the hemisphere. An |
| immediate forty-six percent decline in terrorist activities |
| throughout the affected territories. The unconditional cancellation |
| of several in-progress campaigns which could have seriously |
| compromised three major catacombs and taken out the Duluth Staging |
| Grounds entirely. All because Lieutenant Amanda Bates, feeling her |
| way through her first field command, had gambled on <I>empathy</I> as |
| a military strategy.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was collaborating with the enemy, it was treason, it was betrayal |
| of the rank and file. Diplomats and politicians were supposed to do |
| those things, not soldiers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Still. Results.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was all there in the record: initiative, creativity, a willingness |
| to succeed by whatever means necessary and at whatever cost. Perhaps |
| those inclinations needed to be punished, perhaps only tempered. The |
| debate might have gone on forever if the story hadn't leaked—but |
| it had, and suddenly the generals had a hero on their hands.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometime during her court-martial, Bates's death sentence turned into |
| a rehabilitation; the only question was whether it would take place |
| in the stockade or Officer's College. As it turned out, Leavenworth |
| had both; it took her to its bosom and squeezed hard enough to |
| virtually guarantee promotion, if it didn't kill her first. Three |
| years later Major Bates was bound for the stars, where she was heard |
| to say</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We're breaking and entering, Siri...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel was not the first to register doubts. Others had wondered |
| whether her assignment owed as much to superior qualifications as it |
| did to the resolution of inconvenient PR. I, of course, had no |
| opinion one way or the other; but I could see how she might strike |
| some as a double-edged sword.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| When the fate of the world hangs in the balance, you want to keep an |
| eye on anyone whose career-defining moment involves consorting with |
| the enemy.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"If |
| you can see it, chances are it doesn't exist."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| —<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Kate |
| Keogh, <I>Grounds for Suicide</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Five times we did it. Over five consecutive orbits we threw |
| ourselves between the monster's jaws, let it chew at us with a |
| trillion microscopic teeth until <I>Theseus</I> reeled us in and |
| stitched us back together. We crept through <I>Rorschach</I>'s belly |
| in fits and starts, focusing as best we could on the tasks at hand, |
| trying to ignore the ghosts that tickled our midbrains. Sometimes |
| the walls flexed subtly around us. Sometimes we only thought they |
| did. Sometimes we took refuge in our diving bell while waves of |
| charge and magnetism spiraled languidly past, like boluses of |
| ectoplasm coursing down the intestine of some poltergeist god.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometimes we got caught in the open. The Gang would squabble |
| amongst itself, uncertain which persona was which. Once I fell into |
| a kind of waking paralysis while alien hands dragged me away down the |
| hall; fortunately other hands brought me home, and voices that |
| claimed to be real told me I'd made the whole thing up. Twice Amanda |
| Bates found God, <I>saw</I> the fucker right there in front of her, |
| knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that the creator not only existed |
| but <I>spoke</I> to her, and her alone. Both times she lost her |
| faith once we got her into the bell, but it was touch and go for a |
| while; her warrior drones, drunk on power but still under |
| line-of-sight control, staggered from their perimeters and pointed |
| their weapons along bearings too close for comfort.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunts died fast. Some barely lasted a single foray; a few died |
| in minutes. The longest-lived were the slowest on the draw, |
| half-blind, thick-witted, every command and response bottlenecked by |
| raw high-frequency sound buzzing across their shielded eardrums. |
| Sometimes we backed them up with others that spoke optically: faster |
| but nervous, and even more vulnerable. Together they guarded against |
| an opposition that had not yet shown its face.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It hardly had to. Our troops fell even in the absence of enemy fire.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We worked through it all, through fits and hallucinations and |
| occasional convulsions. We tried to watch each others' backs while |
| magnetic tendrils tugged our inner ears and made us seasick. |
| Sometimes we vomited into our helmets; then we'd just hang on, |
| white-faced, sucking sour air through clenched teeth while the |
| recyclers filtered chunks and blobs from our headspace. And we'd |
| give silent thanks for the small mercy of nonstick, static-repellent |
| faceplates.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It rapidly became obvious that my presence served as more than cannon |
| fodder. It didn't matter that I lacked the Gang's linguistic skills |
| or Szpindel's expertise in biology; I was another set of hands, in a |
| place where anyone could be laid out at a moment's notice. The more |
| people Sarasti kept in the field, the greater the odds that at least |
| one of them would be halfway functional at any given moment. Even |
| so, we were in barely any condition to accomplish anything. Every |
| incursion was an exercise in reckless endangerment. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We did it anyway. It was that or go home.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The work proceeded in infinitesimal increments, hamstrung on every |
| front. The Gang wasn't finding any evidence of signage or speech to |
| decipher, but the gross mechanics of this thing were easy enough to |
| observe. Sometimes <I>Rorschach</I> partitioned itself, extruded |
| ridges around its passageways like the cartilaginous hoops encircling |
| a human trachea. Over hours some of them might develop into |
| contracting irises, into complete septa, lazy as warm candle wax. We |
| seemed to be witnessing the growth of the structure in discrete |
| segments. <I>Rorschach</I> grew mainly from the tips of its thorns; |
| we'd made our incursion hundreds of meters from the nearest, but |
| evidently the process extended at least this far back.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If it <I>was</I> part of the normal growth process, though, it was a |
| feeble echo of what must have been going on in the heart of the |
| apical zones. We couldn't observe those directly, not from inside; |
| barely a hundred meters towards the thorn the tube grew too lethal |
| even for suicidal flesh. But over those five orbits <I>Rorschach</I> |
| grew by another eight percent, as mindless and mechanical as a |
| growing crystal.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Through it all I tried to do my job. I compiled and collated, |
| massaged data I would never understand. I watched the systems around |
| me as best I could, factored each tic and trait into the mix. One |
| part of my mind produced synopses and syntheses while another |
| watched, incredulous and uncomprehending. Neither part could trace |
| where those insights had come from.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was difficult, though. Sarasti wouldn't let me back outside the |
| system. Every observation was contaminated by my own confounding |
| presence in the mix. I did my best. I made no suggestions that |
| might affect critical decisions. In the field I did what I was told |
| to, and no more. I tried to be like one of Bates's drones, a simple |
| tool with no initiative and no influence on the group dynamic. I |
| think I pulled it off, for the most part.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My nonsights accumulated on schedule and piled up in <I>Theseus</I>'s |
| transmission stack, unsent. There was too much local interference to |
| get a signal through to Earth. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel was right: the ghosts followed us back. We began to hear |
| voices other than Sarasti's, whispering up the spine. Sometimes even |
| the brightly-lit wraparound world of the drum would warp and jiggle |
| from the corner of my eye—and more than once I saw boney |
| headless phantoms with too many arms, nested in the scaffolding. |
| They seemed solid enough from the corner of my eye but any spot I |
| focused on faded to shadow, to a dark translucent stain against the |
| background. They were so very fragile, these ghosts. The mere act |
| of observation drilled holes through them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel had rattled off dementias like raindrops. I went to |
| ConSensus for enlightenment and found a whole other self buried below |
| the limbic system, below the hindbrain, below even the cerebellum. |
| It lived in the brain stem and it was older than the vertebrates |
| themselves. It was self-contained: it heard and saw and felt, |
| independent of all those other parts layered overtop like |
| evolutionary afterthoughts. It dwelt on nothing but its own |
| survival. It had no time for planning or abstract analysis, spared |
| effort for only the most rudimentary sensory processing. But it was |
| <I>fast</I>, and it was dedicated, and it could react to threats in a |
| fraction of the time it took its smarter roommates to even become |
| <I>aware</I> of them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And even when it couldn't—when the obstinate, unyielding |
| neocortex refused to let it off the leash—still it tried to |
| pass on what it saw, and Isaac Szpindel experienced an ineffable |
| sense of <I>where to reach</I>. In a way, he had a stripped-down |
| version of the Gang in his head. Everyone did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked further and found God Itself in the meat of the brain, found |
| the static that had sent Bates into rapture and Michelle into |
| convulsions. I tracked Gray Syndrome to its headwaters in the |
| temporal lobe. I heard voices ranting in the brains of |
| schizophrenics. I found cortical infarcts that inspired people to |
| reject their own limbs, imagined the magnetic fields that must have |
| acted in their stead when Cruncher tried to dismember himself. And |
| off in some half-forgotten pesthole of Twentieth-century case |
| studies—filed under <I>Cotard's Syndrome</I>—I found |
| Amanda Bates and others of her kind, their brains torqued into denial |
| of the very self. "I used to have a heart," one of them |
| said listlessly from the archives. "Now I have something that |
| beats in its place." Another demanded to be buried, because his |
| corpse was already stinking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was more, a whole catalog of finely-tuned dysfunctions that |
| <I>Rorschach</I> had not yet inflicted on us. Somnambulism. |
| Agnosias. Hemineglect. ConSensus served up a freak show to make |
| any mind reel at its own fragility: a woman dying of thirst within |
| easy reach of water, not because she couldn't see the faucet but |
| because she couldn't <I>recognize </I>it. A man for whom the left |
| side of the universe did not exist, who could neither perceive nor |
| <I>conceive</I> of the left side of his body, of a room, of a line of |
| text. A man for whom the very concept of <I>leftness</I> had become |
| literally unthinkable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometimes we could conceive of things and still not see them, |
| although they stood right before us. Skyscrapers appeared out of |
| thin air, the person talking to us changed into someone else during a |
| momentary distraction— and we didn't notice. It wasn't magic. |
| It was barely even misdirection. They called it <I>inattentional |
| blindness</I>, and it had been well-known for a century or more: a |
| tendency for the eye to simply <I>not notice</I> things that |
| evolutionary experience classed as <I>unlikely</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I found the opposite of Szpindel's <I>blindsight</I>, a malady not in |
| which the sighted believe they are blind but one in which <I>the |
| blind insist they can see</I>. The very idea was absurd unto |
| insanity and yet there they were, retinas detached, optic nerves |
| burned away, any possibility of vision denied by the laws of physics: |
| bumping into walls, tripping over furniture, inventing endless |
| ludicrous explanations for their clumsiness. The lights, |
| unexpectedly turned off by some other party. A colorful bird |
| glimpsed through the window, distracting attention from the obstacle |
| ahead. I can see perfectly well, thank you. Nothing wrong with <I>my</I> |
| eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Gauges in the head, Szpindel had called them. But there were other |
| things in there too. There was a model of the world, and we didn't |
| look <I>outward</I> at all; our conscious selves saw only the |
| simulation in our heads, an <I>interpretation</I> of reality, |
| endlessly refreshed by input from the senses. What happens when |
| those senses go dark, but the model—thrown off-kilter by some |
| trauma or tumor—<I>fails to refresh</I>? How long do we stare |
| in at that obsolete rendering, recycling and massaging the same old |
| data in a desperate, subconscious act of utterly honest denial? How |
| long before it dawns on us that the world we see no longer reflects |
| the world we inhabit, that we are <I>blind</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Months sometimes, according to the case files. For one poor woman, a |
| year and more.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Appeals to logic fail utterly. How could you see the bird when there |
| <I>is</I> no window? How do you decide where your seen half-world |
| ends if you can't see the other half to weigh it against? If you are |
| dead, how can you smell your own corruption? If you do not exist, |
| Amanda, <I>what is talking to us now</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Useless. When you're in the grip of Cotard's Syndrome or hemineglect |
| you cannot be swayed by argument. When you're in thrall to some |
| alien artefact you <I>know</I> that the self is gone, that reality |
| ends at the midline. You know it with the same unshakeable certainty |
| of any man regarding the location of his own limbs, with that |
| hardwired awareness that needs no other confirmation. Against that |
| conviction, what is reason? What is logic?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Inside <I>Rorschach</I>, they had no place at all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On the sixth orbit it acted.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's talking to us," James said. Her eyes were wide |
| behind the faceplate, but not bright, not manic. Around us |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s guts oozed and crawled at the corner of my eye; it |
| still took effort to ignore the illusion. Foreign words scrabbled |
| like small animals below my brainstem as I tried to focus on a ring |
| of finger-sized protrusions that picketed a patch of wall.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not talking," Szpindel said from across the artery. |
| "You're hallucinating again."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates said nothing. Two grunts hovered in the middle of the space, |
| panning across three axes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's different this time," James insisted. "The |
| geometry—it's not so symmetrical. Looks almost like the |
| Phaistos disk." She spun slowly, pointed down the passage: "I |
| think it's stronger down here…" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Bring Michelle out," Szpindel suggested. "Maybe she |
| can talk some sense into you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James laughed weakly. "Never say die, do you?" She tweaked |
| her pistol and coasted into deeper gloom. "Yes, it's definitely |
| stronger here. There's <I>content</I>, superimposed on—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Quick as a blink, <I>Rorschach</I> cut her off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd never seen anything move so fast before. There was none of the |
| languor we'd grown accustomed to from <I>Rorschach</I>'s septa, no |
| lazy drift to contraction; the iris snapped shut in an instant. |
| Suddenly the artery just <I>ended</I> three meters ahead, with a |
| matte-black membrane filigreed in fine spiral.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And the Gang of Four was on the other side.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunts were on it immediately, lasers crackling through the air. |
| Bates was yelling <I>Get behind me! Stick to the walls!</I>, kicking |
| herself into space like an acrobat in fast-forward, taking some |
| tactical high ground that must have been obvious to her, at least. I |
| edged towards the perimeter. Threads of superheated plasma sliced |
| the air, shimmering. Szpindel, at the corner of my eye, hugged the |
| opposite side of the tunnel. The walls crawled. I could see the |
| lasers taking a toll; the septum peeled back from their touch like |
| burning paper, black oily smoke writhing from its crisping edges and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sudden brightness, everywhere. A riot of fractured light flooded the |
| artery, a thousand shifting angles of incidence and reflection. It |
| was like being trapped in the belly of a kaleidoscope, pointed at the |
| sun. Light—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and needle-sharp pain in my side, in my left arm. The smell |
| of charred meat. A scream, cut off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Susan? You there, Susan? </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We're taking you </I>first<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Around me, the light died; inside me, a swarm of floaters mixed it up |
| with the chronic half-visions <I>Rorschach</I> had already planted in |
| my head. Alarms chirped irritatingly in my helmet— <I>breach, |
| breach, breach</I>—until the smart fabric of the suit softened |
| and congealed where the holes had been. Something stung maddeningly |
| in my left side. I felt as if I'd been branded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Keeton! Check Szpindel!" Bates had called off the |
| lasers. The grunts closed for hand-to-hand, reaching with fiery |
| nozzles and diamond-tipped claws to grapple with some prismatic |
| material glowing softly <I>behind</I> that burnt-back skin.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Fibrous reflector</I>, I realized. It had shattered the laser |
| light, turned it to luminous shrapnel and thrown it back in our |
| faces. Clever.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But its surface was still alight, even with the lasers down; a |
| diffuse glow, dipping and weaving, filtered through from the far side |
| of the barrier while the drones chewed doggedly through the near one. |
| After a moment it struck me: James's headlamp.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Keeton!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Right. Szpindel.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His faceplate was intact. The laser had melted the Faraday mesh |
| laminated onto the crystal, but the suit was sealing that tiny hole |
| even now. The hole behind, drilled neatly through his forehead, |
| remained. The eyes beneath stared at infinity.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well?" Bates asked. She could read his vitals as easily |
| as I, but <I>Theseus</I> was capable of post-mortem rebuilds.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Barring brain damage. "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The whine of drills and shredders stopped; the ambience brightened. |
| I looked away from Szpindel's remains. The grunts had cut a hole in |
| the septum's fibrous underlayer. One of them nosed its way through |
| to the other side.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A new sound rose into the mix, a soft animal keening, haunted and |
| dissonant. For a moment I thought <I>Rorschach</I> was whispering to |
| us again; its walls seemed to contract slightly around me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "James?" Bates snapped. "<I>James!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not James. A little girl in a woman's body in an armored spacesuit, |
| scared out of her wits.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunt nudged her curled-up body back into our company. Bates |
| took it gently. "Susan? Come back, Suze. You're safe."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunts hovered restlessly, alert in every direction, pretending |
| everything was under control. Bates spared me a glance—"Take |
| Isaac."—and turned back to James. "Susan?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "N—n-no," whimpered a small voice, a little girl's |
| voice.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Michelle? Is that you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There was a <I>thing</I>," the little girl said. "It |
| <I>grabbed</I> me. It grabbed my <I>leg</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're out of here." Bates pulled the Gang back along the |
| passage. One grunt lingered, watching the hole; the other took |
| point. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's gone," Bates said gently. "There's nothing |
| there now. See the feed?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You can't <I>s</I>-see it." Michelle whispered. "It's |
| in—it's in—<I>visible</I>.."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The septum receded around a curve as we retreated. The hole torn |
| through its center watched us like the ragged pupil of some great |
| unblinking eye. It stayed empty as long as it stayed in sight. |
| Nothing came out after us. Nothing we could see. A thought began |
| cycling through my head, some half-assed eulogy stolen from an |
| eavesdropped confessional, and try as I might I couldn't shut it |
| down. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Isaac Szpindel hadn't made the semifinals after all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan James came back to us on the way up. Isaac Szpindel did not.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We stripped wordlessly in the decon balloon. Bates, first out of her |
| suit, reached for Szpindel but the Gang stopped her with a hand and a |
| headshake. Personae segued one into another as they stripped the |
| body. Susan removed helmet and backpack and breastplate. Cruncher |
| peeled away the silvery leaded skin from collar to toe. Sascha |
| stripped the jumpsuit and left the pale flesh naked and exposed. |
| Except for the gloves. They left his feedback gloves in place; their |
| fingertips forever tactile, the flesh inside forever numb. Through |
| it all, Szpindel stared unblinking beneath the hole in his forehead. |
| His glazed eyes focused on distant quasars.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I expected Michelle to appear in her turn and close them, but she |
| never did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"You |
| have eyes, but you do not see"</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Jesus |
| the Nazorean</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I don't know how to feel about this</I>, I thought. <I>He was a |
| good man. He was decent, he was kind to me, even when he didn't know |
| I was listening in. I didn't know him long— he wasn't a friend |
| exactly— but still. I should miss him. I should mourn.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I should feel more than this sick sinking fear that I could be |
| next...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti hadn't wasted any time. Szpindel's replacement met us as we |
| emerged, freshly thawed, nicotine-scented. The rehydration of his |
| flesh was ongoing— saline bladders clung to each thigh—although |
| it would never entirely erase the sharpness of his features. His |
| bones cracked when he moved.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked past me and took the body. "Susan—Michelle...I—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The gang turned away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He coughed, began fumbling a body condom over the corpse. "Sarasti |
| wants everyone in the drum."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're hot," Bates said. Even cut short, the excursion had |
| piled up a lethal Seivert count. Faint nausea tickled the back of my |
| throat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Decontaminate later." One long pull of a zipper and |
| Szpindel was gone, engulfed in an oily gray shroud. "You—" |
| he turned in my direction, pointed at the scorched holes in my |
| jumpsuit. "With me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Robert Cunningham. Another prototype. Dark-haired, hollow-cheeked, |
| a jaw you could use as a ruler. Both smoother and harsher than the |
| man he had replaced. Where Szpindel had ticced and jerked as if |
| static-charged, Cunningham's face held all the expression of a wax |
| dummy's. The wetware that ran those muscles had been press-ganged |
| into other pursuits. Even the tremors that afflicted the rest of his |
| body were muted, soothed by the nicotine he drew with every second |
| breath. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He held no cigarette now. He held only the shrouded body of his |
| hard-luck primary and his ongoing, freshly thawed distaste for the |
| ship's synthesist. His fingers trembled.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates and the Gang moved silently up the spine. Cunningham and I |
| followed, guiding the Shroud of Szpindel between us. My leg and side |
| were stinging again, now that Cunningham had reminded them to. There |
| wouldn't be much he could do about them, though. The beams would |
| have cauterized the flesh on their way through, and if they'd hit |
| anything vital I'd have been dead already.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At the hatch we broke into single-file: Szpindel first, Cunningham |
| pushing at his heels. By the time I emerged into the drum Bates and |
| the gang were already down on deck and taking their usual seats. |
| Sarasti, in the flesh, watched them from the end of the conference |
| table.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His eyes were naked. From this angle the soft, full-spectrum light |
| of the drum washed the shine from them. If you didn't look too |
| closely, for too long, you might almost think those eyes were Human.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| BioMed had been spun down for my arrival. Cunningham pointed to a |
| diagnostic couch on a section of the stilled deck that served as our |
| infirmary; I floated over and strapped myself in. Two meters away, |
| past a waist-high guard rail that had risen from the deck, the rest |
| of the drum rolled smoothly past. It slung Bates and the Gang and |
| Sarasti around like weights on a string. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tapped ConSensus to hear them. James was speaking, quietly and |
| without expression. "I noticed a new pattern in the |
| form-constants. Something in the grating. It looked like a signal. |
| It got stronger as I went down the tunnel, I followed it, I blacked |
| out. I don't remember anything more until we were on our way back. |
| Michelle filled me in, as much as she could. That's all I know. I'm |
| sorry."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A hundred degrees away in the no-gee zone, Cunningham maneuvered his |
| predecessor into a coffin with different options than those up front. |
| I wondered if it would embark on an autopsy during the debriefing. |
| I wondered if we'd be able to hear the sounds it made.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sascha," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah." Sascha's trademark drawl infected the voice. "I |
| was riding Mom. Went deaf dumb and stark fucking blind when she |
| passed out. I tried to take over but something was blocking me. |
| Michelle, I guess. Never thought she had it in her. I couldn't even |
| <I>see</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But you don't lose consciousness."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I was awake the whole time, far as I know. Just completely in |
| the dark."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Smell? Tactile?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I could feel it when Michelle pissed in the suit. But I didn't |
| notice anything else."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham was back at my side. The inevitable cigarette had |
| appeared between his lips. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nothing touches you," the vampire surmised. "Nothing |
| grabs your leg."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," Sascha said. She didn't believe Michelle's stories |
| about invisible monsters. None of us did; why bother, when dementia |
| could so easily explain anything we experienced?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Cruncher."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Don't know anything," I still wasn't used to the maleness |
| of the voice now emanating from James's throat. Cruncher was a |
| workaholic. He hardly ever surfaced in mixed company. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're there," Sarasti reminded him. "You must |
| remember some—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mom sent me patterns to parse. I was working on them. I'm |
| <I>still</I> working on them," he added pointedly. "I |
| didn't notice anything. Is that all?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd never been able to get a good read on him. Sometimes Cruncher |
| seemed to have more in common with the dozens of nonconscious modules |
| working in James's head than with sentient hubs comprising the rest |
| of the Gang. "You feel nothing?" Sarasti pressed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just the patterns."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anything significant?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Standard phenomath spirals and gratings. But I haven't |
| finished. Can I go now?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes. Call Michelle, please."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham stabbed at my wounds with anabolisers, muttering to |
| himself. Faint blue smoke curled between us. "Isaac found some |
| tumors," he observed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded and coughed. My throat was sore. The nausea had grown |
| heavy enough to sink below my diaphragm.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Michelle." Sarasti repeated.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I see some more here," Cunningham continued. "Along |
| the bottom of your brain pan. Only a few dozen cells so far, they're |
| not worth burning yet."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Here." Michelle's voice was barely audible, even through |
| ConSensus, but at least it was the voice of an adult. "I'm |
| here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you remember, please?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I—I felt—I was just riding Mom, and then she was |
| gone and there was no one else, so I had to—take over…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you see the septum close?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not really. I felt it going dark, but when I turned around we |
| were already trapped. And then I felt something behind me, it wasn't |
| loud or harsh it just sort of <I>bumped</I>, and it grabbed me, |
| and—and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I'm a |
| bit—woozy..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti waited.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Isaac," Michelle whispered. "He..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes." A pause. "We're very sorry about that." |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe—can he be fixed?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No. There's brain damage." There was something like |
| sympathy in the vampire's voice, the practiced affectation of an |
| accomplished mimic. There was something else, too, an |
| all-but-imperceptible hunger, a subtle edge of <I>temptation</I>. I |
| don't think anyone heard it but me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were sick, and getting sicker. Predators are drawn to the weak |
| and injured.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Michelle had fallen silent again. When she continued, her voice only |
| faltered a little: "I can't tell you much. It grabbed me. It |
| let me go. I went to pieces, and I can't explain why except that |
| fucking place just <I>does</I> things to you, and I was—weak. |
| I'm sorry. There's not much else to tell you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thank you," Sarasti said after a long moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can I—I'd like to leave if that's okay."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes," Sarasti said. Michelle sank below the surface as |
| the Commons rotated past. I didn't see who took her place.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The grunts didn't see anything," Bates remarked. "By |
| the time we broke through the septum the tunnel behind was empty."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Any bogey would have had plenty of time to hightail," |
| Cunningham said. He planted his feet on the deck and grabbed a |
| handhold; the subdrum began to move. I drifted obliquely against my |
| restraints. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't disagree," Bates said, "But if there's |
| anything we've learned about that place, it's that we can't trust our |
| senses."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Trust Michelle's," Sarasti said. He opened a window as I |
| grew heavier: a grunt's-eye view of a fuzzy, bright blob weaving |
| behind the translucent waxed-paper fibers of the skinned septum. |
| James's headlight, from the wrong side of the barrier. The image |
| wobbled a bit as the drone staggered through some local pocket of |
| magnetism, then replayed. Wobbled, replayed. A six-second loop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "See something next to the Gang."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Non-vampires saw no such thing. Sarasti froze the image, evidently |
| realizing as much. "Diffraction patterns aren't consistent with |
| a single light source in open space. I see dimmer elements, |
| reflective elements. Two dark objects close together, similar size, |
| scattering light here—" a cursor appeared at two utterly |
| nondescript points on the image— "and here. One's the |
| Gang. The other's unaccounted for."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just a minute," Cunningham said. "If <I>you</I> can |
| see it through all that, why didn't Su—why didn't <I>Michelle</I> |
| see anything?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Synesthesiac," Sarasti reminded him. "You see. She |
| <I>feels</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| BioMed jerked slightly, locking into spin-synch with the drum; the |
| guard rail sank back into the deck. Off in some far-off corner, |
| something without eyes watched me watching it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shit," Bates whispered. "There's someone home."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They never really talked like that, by the way. You'd hear |
| gibberish—a half-dozen languages, a whole Babel of personal |
| idioms—if I spoke in their real voices.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Some of the simpler tics make it through: Sascha's good-natured |
| belligerence, Sarasti's aversion to the past tense. Cunningham lost |
| most of his gender pronouns to an unforeseen glitch during the work |
| on his temporal lobe. But it went beyond that. The whole lot of |
| them threw English and Hindi and Hadzane into every second sentence; |
| no real scientist would allow their thoughts to be hamstrung by the |
| conceptual limitations of a single language. Other times they acted |
| almost as synthesists in their own right, conversing in grunts and |
| gestures that would be meaningless to any baseline. It's not so much |
| that the bleeding edge lacks social skills; it's just that once you |
| get past a certain point, formal speech is too damn <I>slow</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except for Susan James. The walking contradiction, the woman so |
| devoted to Communication As Unifier that she'd cut her own brain into |
| disunified chunks to make the point. She was the only one who ever |
| seemed to care who she was talking to. The others spoke only for |
| themselves, even when they spoke to each other. Even James's other |
| cores would speak their own minds in their own way, and let everyone |
| else translate as best they could. It wasn't a problem. Everyone on |
| <I>Theseus</I> could read everyone else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But that didn't matter to Susan James. She fit each of her words to |
| their intended recipient, she <I>accommodated</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I am a conduit. I exist to bridge the gap, and I'd bridge nothing if |
| I only told you what these people said. So I am telling you what |
| they <I>meant</I>, and it will mean as much to you as you can handle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except for Susan James, linguist and Ringleader, whom I trust to |
| speak for herself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fifteen minutes to apogee: maximum safe distance, in case <I>Rorschach</I> |
| decided to hit back. Far below, the artefact's magnetic field |
| pressed into Ben's atmosphere like God's little finger. Great dark |
| thunderheads converged behind it; turbulent moon-sized curlicues |
| collided in its wake.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fifteen minutes to apogee, and Bates was still hoping Sarasti would |
| change his mind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In a way, this was her fault. If she had just treated this new |
| travail as one more cross to bear, perhaps things would have gone on |
| more or less as before. There would have been some faint hope that |
| Sarasti would have let us grit our teeth and keep on going, besieged |
| now by spring-loaded trapdoors as well as the usual gauntlet of |
| Seiverts and magnets and monsters from the id. But Bates had made an |
| <I>issue</I> out of it. It wasn't just another piece of shit in the |
| sewer to her: it was the one that clogged the pipe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We're on the brink as it is, just surviving the baseline |
| environment of this thing. If it's started taking deliberate |
| countermeasures…I don't see how we can risk it.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fourteen minutes to apogee, and Amanda Bates was still regretting |
| those words.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On previous expeditions we'd charted twenty-six septa in various |
| stages of development. We'd x-rayed them. We'd done ultrasound. |
| We'd watched them ooze their way across passages or ebb slowly back |
| into the walls. The iris that had snapped shut behind the Gang of |
| Four had been a whole different animal.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And what are the odds that the first one with a hair-trigger just |
| happened to also come with antilaser prismatics? That was no routine |
| growth event. That thing was </I>set<I> for us.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Set by…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was the other thing. Thirteen minutes to apogee, and Bates was |
| worried about the tenants.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It had always been breaking and entering, of course. That much |
| hadn't changed. But when we'd jimmied the lock we'd thought we were |
| vandalizing an empty summer cottage, still under construction. We'd |
| thought the owners would be out of the picture for a while. We |
| hadn't been expecting one of them to catch us on his way to take a |
| late-night piss. And now that one had, and vanished into the |
| labyrinth, it was natural to wonder what weapons it might keep |
| stashed under the pillow…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Those septa could spring on us any time. How many are there? Are |
| they fixed, or portable? We can't proceed without knowing these |
| things.</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At first, Bates had been surprised and delighted when Sarasti agreed |
| with her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Twelve minutes to apogee. From this high ground, well above the |
| static, <I>Theseus</I> peered down through <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| wrenched and twisted anatomy to keep rock-steady eyes on the tiny |
| wound we'd burned in its side. Our limpet tent covered it like a |
| blister; inside, Jack fed us a second, first-person view of the |
| unfolding experiment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Sir. We know Rorschach is inhabited. Do we want to risk further |
| provoking the inhabitants? Do we want to risk </I>killing<I> them?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti hadn't quite looked at her, and hadn't quite spoken. If he |
| had, he might have said <I>I do not understand how meat like you |
| survived to adulthood</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Eleven minutes to apogee, and Amanda Bates was lamenting the fact—not |
| for the first time— that this mission was not under military |
| jurisdiction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were waiting for maximum distance before performing the |
| experiment. <I>Rorschach might interpret this as a hostile act</I>, |
| Sarasti had conceded in a voice that contained no trace of irony |
| whatsoever. Now he stood before us, watching ConSensus play on the |
| table. Reflections writhed across his naked eyes, not quite masking |
| the deeper reflections behind them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ten minutes to apogee. Susan James was wishing that Cunningham would |
| put out that goddamned cigarrette. The smoke stank on its way to the |
| ventilators, and anyway, it wasn't <I>necessary.</I> It was just an |
| anachronistic affectation, an attention-getting device; if he needed |
| the nicotine a patch could have soothed his tremors just as easily, |
| without the smoke and the stink.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That wasn't all she was thinking, though. She was wondering why |
| Cunningham had been summoned to Sarasti's quarters earlier in the |
| shift, why he'd looked at her so strangely afterward. I wondered |
| about that myself. A quick check on ConSensus timestamps showed that |
| her medical file had been accessed during that period. I checked |
| those stats, let the shapes bounce between hemispheres: part of my |
| brain locked on <I>elevated oxytocin</I> as the probable reason for |
| that conference. There was an eighty-two percent chance that James |
| had become too <I>trusting</I> for Sarasti's liking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I had no idea how I knew that. I never did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nine minutes to apogee.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Barely a molecule of <I>Rorschach</I>'s atmosphere had been lost on |
| our account. That was all about to change. Our view of base camp |
| split like a dividing bacterium: one window now focused on the |
| limpet tent, the other on a wide-angle tactical enhance of the space |
| around it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Eight minutes to apogee. Sarasti pulled the plug.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Down on <I>Rorschach</I>, our tent burst like a bug beneath a boot. |
| A geyser erupted from the wound; a snowstorm swirled at its edges, |
| its charged curlicues intricate as lace. Atmosphere gushed into |
| vacuum, spread thin, crystallized. Briefly, the space around base |
| camp <I>sparkled</I>. It was almost beautiful.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates didn't think it was beautiful at all. She watched that |
| bleeding wound with a face as expressionless as Cunningham's, but her |
| jaw was clenched unto tetanus. Her eyes darted between views: |
| watching for things gasping in the shadows. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I> convulsed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Vast trunks and arteries shuddered, a seismic tremor radiating out |
| along the structure. The epicenter began to <I>twist</I>, a vast |
| segment rotating on its axis, the breach midway along its length. |
| Stress lines appeared where the length that rotated sheared against |
| the lengths to either side that didn't; the structure seemed to |
| soften and stretch there, constricting like a great elongate balloon |
| torqueing itself into sausage links.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked. Cats made something like that sound when they spied |
| a bird on the far side of a windowpane.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| ConSensus groaned with the sound of worlds scraping against each |
| other: telemetry from the onsite sensors, their ears to the ground. |
| Jack's camera controls had frozen again. The image it sent was |
| canted and grainy. The pickup stared blankly at the edge of the |
| hole we'd bored into the underworld. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The groaning subsided. A final faint cloud of crystalline stardust |
| dissipated into space, barely visible even on max enhance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No bodies. None visible, anyway.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sudden motion at base camp. At first I thought it was static on |
| Jack's feed, playing along lines of high contrast—but no, |
| something was definitely moving along the edges of the hole we'd |
| burned. Something almost <I>wriggled</I> there, a thousand gray |
| mycelia extruding from the cut surface and writhing slowly into the |
| darkness. "It's—huh," Bates said. "Triggered |
| by the pressure drop, I guess. That's one way to seal a breach."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Two weeks after we'd wounded it, <I>Rorschach</I> had begun to heal |
| itself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Apogee behind us now. All downhill from here. <I>Theseus</I> began |
| the long drop back into enemy territory.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Doesn't use septa," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"My |
| genes done gone and tricked my brain<br> |
| By making fucking feel so great<br> |
| That's how the little creeps attain<br> |
| Their plan to fuckin' replicate<br> |
| But brain's got tricks itself, you see<br> |
| To get the bang but not the bite<br> |
| I got this here vasectomy<br> |
| My genes can fuck <I>themselves</I><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal"> |
| tonight.</SPAN>"</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <BR> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">The |
| r-selectors, <I>Trunclade</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| First-person sex—<I>real</I> sex, as Chelsea insisted on |
| calling it—was an acquired taste: jagged breathing, the raw |
| slap and stink of sweaty skin full of pores and blemishes, a whole |
| other person with a whole other set of demands and dislikes. There |
| was definite animal appeal, no doubt about it. This was, after all, |
| how we'd done it for millions of years. But this, this third-world |
| carnality had always carried an element of struggle, of asynchronous |
| patterns in conflict. There was no convergence here. There was only |
| the rhythm of bodies in collision, a struggle for dominance, each |
| trying to force the other into synch. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea regarded it as love in its purest form. I came to think of |
| it as hand-to-hand combat. Before, whether fucking creations from my |
| own menu or slip-on skins from someone else's, <I> I</I> had always |
| selected the contrast and the rez, the texture and the attitude. The |
| bodily functions, the resistance of competing desires, the endless |
| foreplay that wears your tongue to the root and leaves your face |
| sticky and glistening—just kinks, today. Options for the |
| masochistic.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But there were no options with Chelsea. With her, everything came |
| standard.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I indulged her. I guess I was no more patient with her perversions |
| than she was with my ineptitude at them. Other things made it worth |
| the effort. Chelsea would argue about anything under the sun, wry |
| and insightful and curious as a cat. She would pounce without |
| warning. Retired to the redundant majority, she still took such |
| simple joy in the very act of being <I>alive</I>. She was impulsive |
| and impetuous. She cared about people. Pag. <I>Me</I>. She wanted |
| to know me. She wanted in. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was proving to be a problem.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We could try it again," she said once in an aftermath of |
| sweat and pheromones. "And you won't even remember what you |
| were so upset about. You won't even remember you <I>were</I> upset, |
| if you don't want to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I smiled and looked away; suddenly the planes of her face were |
| coarse and unappealing. "How many times is that now? Eight? |
| Nine?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I just want you to be <I>happy</I>, Cyg. True happiness is one |
| hell of a gift, and I can give it to you if you'll let me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't want me happy," I said pleasantly. "You |
| want me customized."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She <I>mmm'd</I> into the hollow of my throat for a moment. Then: |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You just want to change me into something more, more |
| <I>accommodating</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea lifted her head. "Look at me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned my head. She'd shut down the chromatophores in her cheek; |
| the tattoo, transplanted, fluttered now on her shoulder.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Look at my <I>eyes</I>," Chelsea said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at the imperfect skin around them, at the capillaries |
| wriggling across the whites. I felt a distant bemusement that such |
| flawed, decaying organs were still able to hypnotize me on occasion.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now," Chelsea said. "What do you mean by that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged. "You keep pretending this is a partnership. We |
| both know it's a competition."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A competition."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're trying to manipulate me into playing by your rules."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What <I>rules</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The way you want the relationship run. I don't blame you, |
| Chelse, not in the least. We've been trying to manipulate each other |
| for as long as—hell, it's not even Human nature. It's |
| <I>mammalian</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't believe it." She shook her head. Ropy tendrils |
| of hair swung across her face. "It's the middle of the |
| twenty-first Century and you're hitting me with this <I>war of the |
| sexes</I> bullshit?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Granted, your <I>tweaks</I> are a pretty radical iteration. |
| Get right in there and reprogram your mate for optimum servility."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You actually think I'm trying to, to <I>housebreak</I> you? |
| You think I'm trying to train you like a puppy?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're just doing what comes naturally."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can't believe you'd pull this shit on me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought you valued honesty in relationships."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>What</I> relationship? According to you there's no such |
| thing. This is just—mutual rape, or something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's what relationships <I>are</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Don't pull that shit on me</I>." She sat up, swung |
| her feet over the edge of the bed. Putting her back to me. "I |
| know how I <I>feel</I>. If I know <I>anything</I> I know that much. |
| And I only wanted to make you happy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know you believe that," I said gently. "I know it |
| doesn't <I>feel</I> like a strategy. Nothing does when it's wired |
| that deeply. It just feels <I>right</I>, it feels natural. It's |
| nature's trick."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's <I>someone</I>'s fucking trick."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I sat up next to her, let my shoulder brush hers. She leaned away. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know this stuff," I said after a while. "I know |
| how people work. It's my job."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was hers too, for that matter. Nobody who spliced brains for a |
| living could possibly be unaware of all that basic wiring in the |
| sub-basement. Chelsea had simply chosen to ignore it; to have |
| admitted anything would have compromised her righteous anger.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could have pointed that out too, I suppose, but I knew how much |
| stress the system could take and I wasn't ready to test it to |
| destruction. I didn't want to lose her. I didn't want to lose that |
| feeling of safety, that sense that it made a difference whether I |
| lived or died. I only wanted her to back off a bit. I only wanted |
| room to breathe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You can be such a reptile sometimes," she said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Mission accomplished.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Our first approach had been all caution and safety margins. This |
| time we came in like a strike force.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Scylla</I> burned towards <I>Rorschach</I> at over two gees, its |
| trajectory a smooth and predictable arc ending at the ruptured base |
| camp. It may have even landed there, for all I know; perhaps Sarasti |
| had two-birded the mission, programmed the shuttle for some |
| collecting of its own. If so, it wouldn't land with us on board. |
| <I>Scylla</I> spat us into space almost fifty kilometers short of the |
| new beachhead, left us naked and plummeting on some wireframe |
| contraption with barely enough reaction mass for a soft landing and a |
| quick getaway. We didn't even have control over <I>that</I>: |
| success depended on unpredictability, and how better to ensure that |
| than to not even know ourselves what we were doing?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti's logic. Vampire logic. We could follow it partway: the |
| colossal deformation that had sealed <I>Rorschach</I>'s breach was so |
| much slower, so much more expensive than the dropgate that had |
| trapped the Gang. The fact that dropgates <I>hadn't</I> been used |
| implied that they took time to deploy—to redistribute necessary |
| mass, perhaps, or spring-load its reflexes. That gave us a window. |
| We could still venture into the den so long as the lions couldn't |
| predict our destination and set traps in advance. So long as we got |
| out again before they could set them afterwards.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thirty-seven minutes," Sarasti had said, and none of us |
| could fathom how he'd come to that number. Only Bates had dared to |
| ask aloud, and he had merely glinted at her: "You can't |
| follow."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Vampire logic. From an obvious premise to an opaque conclusion. Our |
| lives depended on it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The retros followed some preprogrammed algorithm that mated Newton |
| with a roll of the dice. Our vector wasn't completely random—once |
| we'd eliminated raceways and growth zones, areas without |
| line-of-sight escape routes, dead ends and unbranched segments |
| ("Boring," Sarasti said, dismissing them), barely ten |
| percent of the artefact remained in the running. Now we dropped |
| towards a warren of brambles eight kilometers from our original |
| landing site. Here in the midst of our final approach, there was no |
| way that even <I>we</I> could predict our precise point of impact.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If <I>Rorschach</I> could, it deserved to win.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We fell. Ridged spires and gnarled limbs sectioned the sky wherever |
| I looked, cut the distant starscape and the imminent superJovian into |
| a jagged mosaic veined in black. Three kilometers away or thirty, |
| the tip of some swollen extremity burst in a silent explosion of |
| charged particles, a distant fog of ruptured, freezing atmosphere. |
| Even as it faded I could make out wisps and streamers swirling into |
| complex spirals: <I>Rorschach</I>'s magnetic field, sculpting the |
| artefact's very breath into radioactive sleet.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd never seen it with naked eyes before. I felt like an insect on a |
| starry midwinter's night, falling through the aftermath of a forest |
| fire. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The sled fired its brakes. I snapped back against the webbing of my |
| harness, bumped against the rebounding armored body next to me. |
| Sascha. <I>Only Sascha</I>, I remembered. Cunningham had sedated |
| the rest of them, left this one core lonely and alone in the group |
| body. I hadn't even realized that that was possible with multiple |
| personalities. She stared back at me from behind her faceplate. |
| None of her surfaces showed through the suit. I could see nothing in |
| her eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was happening so often, these days.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham was not with us. Nobody had asked why, when Sarasti |
| assigned the berths. The biologist was first among equals now, a |
| backup restored with no other behind him. The second-least |
| replaceable of our irreplaceable crew.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It made me a better bargain. The odds I bought had increased to one |
| in three.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A silent bump shuddered up the frame. I looked forward again, past |
| Bates on the front pallet, past the anchored drones that flanked her |
| two to each side. The sled had launched its assault, a prefab |
| inflatable vestibule mounted on an explosive injection assembly that |
| would punch through <I>Rorschach</I>'s skin like a virus penetrating |
| a host cell. The spindle-legged contraption dwindled and disappeared |
| from my sight. Moments later a pinpoint sodium sun flared and died |
| against the ebony landscape ahead—antimatter charge, so small |
| you could almost count the atoms, shot directly into the hull. A lot |
| rougher than the tentative foreplay of our first date.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We landed, hard, while the vestibule was still inflating. The grunts |
| were off the sled an instant before contact, spitting tiny puffs of |
| gas from their nozzles, arranging themselves around us in a |
| protective rosette. Bates was up next, leaping free of her |
| restraints and sailing directly towards the swelling hab. Sascha and |
| I unloaded the fiberop hub—a clamshell drum half a meter thick |
| and three times as wide—lugging it between us while one of the |
| grunts slipped through the vestibule's membranous airlock.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Let's move, people." Bates was hanging off one of the |
| inflatable's handholds. "Thirty minutes to—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She fell silent. I didn't have to ask why: the advance grunt had |
| positioned itself over the newly-blasted entrance and sent back its |
| first postcard.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Light from below.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You'd think that would have made it easier. Our kind has always |
| feared the dark; for millions of years we huddled in caves and |
| burrows while unseen things snuffled and growled—or just |
| <I>waited</I>, silent and undetectable—in the night beyond. |
| You'd think that any light, no matter how meager, might strip away |
| some of the shadows, leave fewer holes for the mind to fill with |
| worst imaginings.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You'd think.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We followed the grunt down into a dim soupy glow like blood-curdled |
| milk. At first it seemed as though the atmosphere itself was alight, |
| a luminous fog that obscured anything more than ten meters distant. |
| An illusion, as it turned out; the tunnel we emerged into was about |
| three meters wide and lit by rows of raised glowing dashes—the |
| size and approximate shape of dismembered human fingers—wound |
| in a loose triple helix around the walls. We'd recorded similar |
| ridges at the first site, although the breaks had not been so |
| pronounced and the ridges had been anything but luminous.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Stronger in the near-infrared," Bates reported, flashing |
| the spectrum to our HUDs. The air would have been transparent to pit |
| vipers. It <I>was</I> transparent to sonar: the lead grunt sprayed |
| the fog with click trains and discovered that the tunnel widened into |
| some kind of chamber seventeen meters further along. Squinting in |
| that direction I could just make out subterranean outlines through |
| the mist. I could just make out jawed things, pulling back out of |
| sight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Let's go," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We plugged in the grunts, left one guarding the way out. Each of us |
| took another as a guardian angel on point. The machines spoke to our |
| HUDs via laser link; they spoke to each other along stiffened lengths |
| of shielded fiberop that unspooled from the hub trailing in our wake. |
| It was the best available compromise in an environment without any |
| optima. Our tethered bodyguards would keep us all in touch during |
| lone excursions around corners or down dead ends.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Yeah. <I>Lone</I> excursions. Forced to either split the group or |
| cover less ground, we were to split the group. We were |
| speed-cartographers panning for gold. Everything we did here was an |
| act of faith: faith that the unifying principles of <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| internal architecture could be derived from the raw dimensions we'd |
| grab on the run. Faith that <I>Rorschach</I>'s internal architecture |
| even <I>had</I> unifying principles. Earlier generations had |
| worshipped malign and capricious spirits. Ours put its faith in an |
| ordered universe. Here in the Devil's Baklava, it was easy to wonder |
| if our ancestors hadn't been closer to the mark.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We moved along the tunnel. Our destination resolved to merely human |
| eyes: not so much chamber as <I>nexus</I>, a knot of space formed by |
| the convergence of a dozen tunnels angling in from different |
| orientations. Ragged meshes of quicksilver dots gleamed along |
| several glistening surfaces; shiny protrusions poked through the |
| substrate like a scattershot blast of ball-bearings pressed into wet |
| clay.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at Bates and Sascha. "Control panel?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shrugged. Her drones panned the throats around us, spraying |
| sonar down each. My HUD sketched a patchy three-d model from the |
| echoes: swathes of paint thrown against invisible walls. We were |
| dots near the center of a ganglion, a tiny swarm of parasites |
| infesting some great hollowed host. Each tunnel curved away in a |
| gradual spiral, each along a different orientation. Sonar could peep |
| around those bends a few meters further than we could. Neither eyes |
| nor ultrasonics saw anything to distinguish one choice from another.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates pointed down one of the passageways—"Keeton—" |
| and another— "Sascha," before turning to coast off |
| down her own unbeaten path.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked uneasily down mine. "Any particular—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Twenty-five minutes," she said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned and jetted slowly down my assigned passageway. The passage |
| curved clockwise, a long unremarkable spiral; after twenty meters |
| that curvature would have blocked any view of its entrance even if |
| the foggy atmosphere hadn't. My drone kept point across the tunnel, |
| its sonar clicking like the chattering of a thousand tiny teeth, its |
| tether unspooling back to the distant drum in the nexus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was a comfort, that leash. It was <I>short</I>. The grunts could |
| stray ninety meters and no further, and we were under strict orders |
| to stay under their wings at all times. This dim infested burrow |
| might lead all the way to hell, but I would not be expected to follow |
| it nearly so far. My cowardice had official sanction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fifty meters to go. Fifty meters and I could turn and run with my |
| tail between my legs. In the meantime all I had to do was grit my |
| teeth, and focus, and record: <I>everything you see</I>, Sarasti had |
| said. <I> As much as possible of what you can't</I>. And hope that |
| this new reduced time limit would expire before <I>Rorschach</I> |
| spiked us into gibbering dementia.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The walls around me twitched and shivered like the flesh of something |
| just-killed. Something darted in and out of sight with a faint cackle |
| of laughter.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Focus. Record</I>. <I>If the grunt doesn't see it, it's not |
| real.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sixty-five meters in, one of the ghosts got inside my helmet.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to ignore it. I tried to look away. But this phantom wasn't |
| flickering at the edge of vision; it hovered near the center of my |
| faceplate, floating like a spot of swirling dizziness between me and |
| the HUD. I gritted my teeth and tried to look past, stared into the |
| dim bloody haze of the middle distance, watched the jerky unfolding |
| travelogues in the little windows labeled <I>Bates</I> and <I>James</I>. |
| Nothing out there. But in <I>here</I>, floating before my eyes, |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s latest headfuck smeared a fuzzy thumbprint right |
| in front of the sonar feed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "New symptom," I called in. "Nonperipheral |
| hallucination, stable, pretty formless though. No spiking that I |
| can—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The inset marked <I>Bates</I> skidded hard about. "<I>Keet—</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Window and voice cut out together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not just Bates' window, either. Sascha's inset and the drone's-eye |
| sonarscape flickered and died at the same moment, stripped my HUD |
| bare except for in-suit feeds and a little red readout flashing Link |
| Down. I spun but the grunt was still there, three meters off my |
| right shoulder. Its optical port was clearly visible, a ruby |
| thumbnail set into the plastron.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Its gun ports were visible too. Pointing at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I froze. The drone <I>shivered</I> in some local electromagnetic |
| knot as if terrified. Of me, or—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of something <I>behind</I> me…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I started to turn. My helmet filled with sudden static, and with what |
| sounded—faintly—like a voice:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "—ucking<I> move</I>, Kee—not—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Bates? <I>Bates?</I>" Another icon had bloomed in place |
| of Link Down. The grunt was using <I>radio</I> for some reason—and |
| though almost close enough to touch, I could barely make out the |
| signal.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A hash of Batespeak: "—to your—right in<I> front</I> |
| of—" and Sascha as well, a bit more clearly: "—an't |
| he <I>see</I> it?..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "See what? <I>Sascha! </I>Someone tell me what—see <I>what</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "—read? Keeton, do you read?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Somehow Bates had boosted the signal; static roared like an ocean, |
| but I could hear the words behind it. "Yes! What—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Keep absolutely still</I>, do you understand? <I>Absolutely |
| still.</I> Acknowledge."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Acknowledged." The drone kept me in its shaky sights, |
| dark stereocam irises spasming wide, stuttering to pinpoints. "Wha—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There's something in front of you, Keeton. Directly between |
| you and the grunt. Can't you see it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "N-no. My HUD's down—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha broke in: "How can he not <I>see</I> it it's right <I>th—</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates barked over her: "It's man-sized, radially symmetrical, |
| eight, nine arms. Like tentacles, but—segmented. Spiky."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't see anything," I said. But I did: I saw something |
| reaching for me, in my pod back aboard <I>Theseus</I>. I saw |
| something curled up motionless in the ship's spine, watching as we |
| laid our best plans.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I saw Michelle the synesthesiac, curled into a fetal ball: <I>You |
| can't see it...it's in—</I>visible...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's it doing?" I called. <I> Why can't I see it? Why |
| can't I </I>see<I> it?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just—floating there. Kind of waving. Oh, <I>sh</I>—<I>Keet—</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunt skidded sideways, as if slapped by a giant hand. It |
| bounced off the wall and suddenly the laser link was back, filling |
| the HUD with intelligence: first-person perspectives of Bates and |
| Sascha racing along alien tunnels, a grunt's-eye view of a space suit |
| with <I>Keeton</I> stenciled across its breastplate and there, right |
| beside it, some <I>thing</I> like a rippling starfish with too many |
| arms—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang barreled around the curve and now I almost <I>could</I> see |
| something with my own eyes, flickering like heat-lightning off to one |
| side. It was large, and it was moving, but somehow my eyes just <I>slid |
| off</I> every time they tried to get a fix. <I>It's not real</I>, I |
| thought, giddy with hysterical relief, <I>it's just another |
| hallucination</I> but then Bates sailed into view and it was <I>right |
| there</I>, no flickering, no uncertainty, nothing but a collapsed |
| probability wave and solid, undeniable mass. Exposed, it grabbed the |
| nearest wall and scrambled over our heads, segmented arms flailing |
| like whips. A sudden crackling buzz in the back of my head and it |
| was drifting free again, charred and smoking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A stuttering click. The whine of machinery gearing down. Three |
| grunts hovered in formation in the middle of the passageway. One |
| faced the alien. I glimpsed the tip of some lethal proboscis sliding |
| back into its sheath. Bates shut the grunt down before it had |
| finished closing its mouth.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Optical links and three sets of lungs filled my helmet with a roar of |
| heavy breathing. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The offlined grunt drifted in the murky air. The alien carcass |
| bumped gently off the wall, twitching: a hydra of human backbones, |
| scorched and fleshless. It didn't look much like my on-board visions |
| after all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For some reason I couldn't put my finger on, I found that almost |
| reassuring.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The two active grunts panned the fog until Bates gave them new |
| orders; then one turned to secure the carcass, the other to steady |
| its fallen comrade. Bates grabbed the dead grunt and unplugged its |
| tether. "Fall back. Slowly. I'm right behind you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tweaked my jets. Sascha hesitated. Coils of shielded cable |
| floated about us like umbilical cords. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Now</I>," Bates said, plugging a feed from her own suit |
| directly into the offlined grunt.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha started after me. Bates took up the rear. I watched my HUD; |
| a swarm of multiarmed monsters would appear there any moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They didn't. But the blackened thing against the belly of Bates' |
| machine was real enough. Not a hallucination. Not even some |
| understandable artefact of fear and synesthesia. <I>Rorschach</I> |
| was inhabited. Its inhabitants were invisible. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometimes. Sort of.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And, oh yeah. We'd just killed one.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates threw the deactivated grunt into the sky as soon as we'd made |
| vacuum. Its comrades used it for target practice while we strapped |
| in, firing and firing until there was nothing left but cooling vapor. |
| <I>Rorschach</I> spun even that faint plasma into filigree before it |
| faded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Halfway back to <I>Theseus</I>, Sascha turned to the Major: "You—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But— they do shit on their own, right? Autonomous."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not when they're slaved."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Malfunction? Spike?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates didn't answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She called ahead. By the time we made it back Cunningham had grown |
| another little tumor on <I>Theseus</I>' spine, a remote surgery |
| packed with teleops and sensors. One of the surviving grunts grabbed |
| the carcass and jumped ship as soon as we passed beneath the |
| carapace, completing the delivery as we docked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were born again to the fruits of a preliminary necropsy. The |
| holographic ghost of the dissected alien rose from ConSensus like |
| some flayed and horrific feast. Its splayed arms looked like human |
| spinal columns. We sat around the table and waited for someone else |
| to take the first bite.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did you have to shoot it with <I>microwaves</I>?" |
| Cunningham sniped, tapping the table. "You completely <I>cooked</I> |
| the animal. Every cell was blown out from the inside."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shook her head. "There was a malfunction."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He gave her a sour look. "A malfunction that just happens to |
| involve precise targeting of a moving object. It doesn't sound |
| random to me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates looked back evenly. "Something flipped autonomous |
| targeting from <I>off</I> to <I>on</I>. A coin toss. Random."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Random is—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Give it a rest, Cunningham. I don't need this shit from you |
| right now."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His eyes rolled in that smooth dead face, focused suddenly on |
| something overhead. I followed his gaze: Sarasti stared down at us |
| like an owl panning for meadow voles, drifting slowly in the |
| Coriolis breeze.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No visor this time, either. I knew he hadn't lost it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He fixed Cunningham. "Your findings."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham swallowed. Bits and pieces of alien anatomy flickered |
| with color-coded highlights as he tapped his fingers. "Right, |
| then. I'm afraid I can't give you much at the cellular level. |
| There's not much left inside the membranes. Not many membranes left, |
| for that matter. In terms of gross morphology, the specimen's |
| dorsoventrally compressed and radially symmetrical, as you can see. |
| Calcareous exoskeleton, keratinised plastic cuticle. Nothing |
| special."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates looked skeptical. "<I>Plastic skin</I> is 'nothing |
| special'?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Given the environment I was half-expecting a Sanduloviciu |
| plasma. Plastic's simply refined petroleum. Organocarbon. This |
| thing is carbon-based. It's even <I>protein</I> based, although its |
| proteins are a great deal tougher than ours. Numerous sulphur |
| cross-bonds for lateral bracing, as far as I could tell from what |
| your grunts didn't denature." Cunningham's eyes looked past us |
| all; his consciousness was obviously far aft, haunting remote |
| sensors. "The thing's tissues are saturated with magnetite. On |
| earth you find that material in dolphin brains, migratory birds, even |
| some bacteria—anything that navigates or orients using magnetic |
| fields. Moving up to macrostructures we've got a pneumatic internal |
| skeleton, which as far as I can tell doubles as musculature. |
| Contractile tissue squeezes gas through a system of bladders that |
| stiffen or relax each segment in the arms."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The light came back into Cunningham's eyes long enough to focus on |
| his cigarette. He brought it to his mouth, dragged deeply, set it |
| down again. "Note the invaginations around the base of each |
| arm." Flaccid balloons glowed orange on the virtual carcass. |
| "<I>Cloacae</I>, you could call them. Everything opens into |
| them: they eat, breathe, and defecate through the same little |
| compartment. No other major orifices."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang made a face that said <I>Sascha, grossed out</I>. "Don't |
| things get—clogged up? Seems inefficient."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If one gets plugged, there's eight other doors into the same |
| system. You'll wish you were so <I>inefficient</I> the next time you |
| choke on a chicken bone." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What <I>does</I> it eat?" Bates asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I couldn't say. I found gizzard-like contractiles around the |
| cloacae, which implies they <I>chew</I> on something, or did at some |
| point in their history. Other than that..." He spread his |
| hands; the cigarette left faint streamers in its wake. "Inflate |
| those contractiles enough and you create an airtight seal, by the |
| way. In conjunction with the cuticle, that would allow this organism |
| to survive briefly in vacuum. And we already know it can handle the |
| ambient radiation, although don't ask me how. Whatever it uses for |
| genes must be a great deal tougher than ours."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So it can survive in space," Bates mused.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "In the sense that a dolphin survives underwater. Limited time |
| only."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How long?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm not certain."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Central nervous system," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates and the Gang grew suddenly, subtly still. James's affect |
| seeped out over her body, supplanting Sascha's.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Smoke curled from Cunningham's mouth and nose. "There's nothing |
| <I>central</I> about it, as it transpires. No cephalisation, not |
| even clustered sense organs. The body's covered with something like |
| eyespots, or chromatophores, or both. There are setae everywhere. |
| And as far as I can tell—if all those little cooked filaments |
| I've been able to put back together after your <I>malfunction</I> |
| really are nerves and not something completely different—every |
| one of those structures is under independent control."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates sat up straight. "Seriously?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded. "It would be akin to independently controlling the |
| movement of each individual hair on your head, although this creature |
| is <I>covered</I> with little hairs from tip to tip. The same thing |
| applies to the eyes. Hundreds of thousands of eyes, all over the |
| cuticle. Each one is barely more than a pinhole camera, but each is |
| capable of independent focus and I'm guessing all the different |
| inputs integrate somewhere up the line. The entire body acts like a |
| single diffuse retina. In theory that gives it enormous visual |
| acuity."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A distributed telescope array," Bates murmured.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A chromatophore underlies each eye—the pigment's some |
| kind of cryptochrome so it's probably involved in vision, but it can |
| also diffuse or contract through the local tissue. That implies |
| dynamic pigment patterns, like a squid or a chameleon."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Background pattern-matching?" Bates asked. "Would |
| that explain why Siri couldn't see it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham opened a new window and played grainy looped imagery of |
| Siri Keeton and his unseen dance partner. The creature I hadn't |
| noticed was ominously solid to the cameras: a floating discoid |
| twice as wide as my own torso, arms extending from its edges like |
| thick knotted ropes. Patterns rippled across its surface in waves; |
| sunlight and shadow playing on a shallow seabed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As you can see, the background doesn't match the pattern," |
| Cunningham said. "It's not even close." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can you explain Siri's blindness to it?" Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can't," Cunningham admitted. "It's beyond ordinary |
| crypsis. But <I>Rorschach</I> makes you see all sorts of things that |
| aren't there. Not seeing something that <I>is</I> there might come |
| down to essentially the same thing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Another hallucination?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Another shrug while Cunningham sucked smoke. "There are many |
| ways to fool the human visual system. It's interesting that the |
| illusion failed when multiple witnesses were present, but if you want |
| a definitive mechanism you'll have to give me more to work with than |
| <I>that</I>." He stabbed his cigarette hand at the crisped |
| remains.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—" James took a breath, bracing herself— |
| "We're talking about something... sophisticated, at least. |
| Something very complex. A great deal of processing power."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham nodded again. "I'd estimate nervous tissue accounts |
| for about thirty percent of body mass."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So it's intelligent." Her voice was almost a whisper.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not remotely."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—thirty percent—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thirty percent <I>motor and sensory</I> wiring." Another |
| drag. "Much like an octopus; an enormous number of neurons, but |
| half of them get used up running the suckers."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My understanding is that octopi are quite intelligent," |
| James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "By molluscan standards, certainly. But do you have any <I>idea</I> |
| how much extra cabling you'd need if the photoreceptors in your eye |
| were spread across your entire body? You'd need about three hundred |
| million extension cords to begin with, ranging from half a millimeter |
| to two meters long. Which means all your signals are staggered and |
| out of synch, which means billions of additional logic gates to |
| cohere the input. And that just gets you a single static image, with |
| no filtering, no interpretation, no time-series integration at all." |
| Shiver. Drag. "Now multiply that by all the extra wiring |
| needed to <I>focus </I>all those eyespots on an object, or to send |
| all that information back to individual chromatophores, and then add |
| in the processing power you need to <I>drive</I> those chromatophores |
| one at a time. Thirty percent might do all that, but I strongly |
| doubt you'd have much left over for philosophy and science." He |
| waved his hand in the general direction of the hold. "That—that—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Scrambler,</I>" James suggested.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham rolled his tongue around it. "Very well. That |
| <I>scrambler</I> is an absolute miracle of evolutionary engineering. |
| It's also dumb as a stick."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A moment's silence.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what <I>is</I> it?" James asked at last. "Somebody's |
| pet?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Canary in a coal mine," Bates suggested.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Perhaps not even that," Cunningham said. "Perhaps no |
| more than a white blood cell with waldoes. Maintenance bot, maybe. |
| Teleoperated, or instinct-driven. But people, we're ignoring far |
| greater questions here. How could an anaerobe even develop complex |
| multicellular anatomy, much less move as <I>fast</I> as this thing |
| did? That level of activity burns a great deal of ATP."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe they don't use ATP," Bates said as I thumbnailed: |
| <I>adenosine triphosphate</I>. Cellular energy source.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was <I>crammed</I> with ATP," Cunningham told her. |
| "You can tell that much even with <I>these</I> remains. The |
| question is, how can it synthesize the stuff fast enough to keep up |
| with demand. Purely anaerobic pathways wouldn't suffice."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody offered any suggestions.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Anyway," he said, "So endeth the lesson. If you want |
| gory details, check ConSensus." He wiggled the fingers of his |
| free hand: the spectral dissection vanished. "I'll keep |
| working, but if you want any real answers go get me a live one." |
| He butted out his cigarette against the bulkhead and stared |
| defiantly around the drum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The others hardly reacted; their topologies still sparkled from the |
| revelations of a few minutes before. Perhaps Cunningam's pet peeve |
| <I>was </I>more important to the Big Picture; perhaps, in a |
| reductionist universe, biochemical basics should always take priority |
| over the finer points of ETI and interspecies etiquette. But Bates |
| and the Gang were time-lagged, processing earlier revelations. Not |
| just <I>processing</I>, either: wallowing. They clung to |
| Cunningham's findings like convicted felons who'd just discovered |
| they might be freed on a technicality.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because the scrambler was dead at our hands, no doubt about it. But |
| it wasn't an <I>alien</I>, not really. It wasn't <I>intelligent</I>. |
| It was just a blood cell with waldoes. It was dumb as a stick.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And property damage is so much easier to live with than murder.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Problems |
| cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them"</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Einstein</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Robert Paglino had set me up with Chelsea in the first place. Maybe |
| he felt responsible when the relationship started jumping the rails. |
| Or maybe Chelsea, Madam Fix-It that she was, had approached him for |
| an intervention. For whatever reason, it was obvious the moment we |
| took our seats at QuBit's that his invitation had not been entirely |
| social.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He went for some neurotrope cocktail on the rocks. I stuck with |
| Rickard's.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Still old-school," Pag said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Still into foreplay," I observed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That obvious, huh?" He took a sip. "That'll teach |
| me to try the subtle approach with a professional jargonaut."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jargonaut's got nothing to do with it. You wouldn't have |
| fooled a border collie." Truth be told, Pag's topology never |
| really told me much that I didn't already know. I never really had |
| much of an edge in reading him. Maybe we just knew each other too |
| well.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So," he said, "spill."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nothing to spill. She just got to know the real me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That <I>is</I> bad."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What'd she tell you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Me? Nothing at all."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I gave him a look over the top of my glass.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He sighed. "She knows you're cheating on her."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Cheating. With the skin."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's based on <I>her</I>!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But it <I>isn't</I> her."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No it isn't. It doesn't fart or fight or break into tears |
| every time you don't want to be dragged off to meet its family. |
| Look, I love the woman dearly, but come <I>on</I>. When was the last |
| time <I>you</I> tried first-person fucking?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Seventy-four," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're kidding." I'd have guessed <I>never</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did some third-world medical missionary work between gigs. |
| They still bump and grind in Texas." Pag swigged his trope. |
| "Actually, I thought it was alright."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The novelty wears off."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Evidently."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And it's not like I'm doing anything unusual here, Pag. <I>She's</I> |
| the one with the kink. And it's not just the sex. She keeps <I>asking</I> |
| about—she keeps wanting to <I>know</I> things."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Irrelevant stuff. My life as a kid. My family. Nobody's |
| fucking business."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She's just taking an interest. Not everyone considers |
| childhood memories off-limits, you know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Thanks for the insight." As if people had never <I>taken |
| an interest</I> before. As if Helen hadn't <I>taken an interest</I> |
| when she went through my drawers and filtered my mail and followed me |
| from room to room, asking the drapes and the furniture why I was |
| always so sullen and withdrawn. She'd taken such an interest that |
| she wouldn't let me out the door until I confided in her. At twelve |
| I'd been stupid enough to throw myself on her mercy, <I>It's |
| personal, Mom. I'd just rather not talk about it.</I> Then I'd |
| made my escape into the bathroom when she demanded to know if <I>it |
| </I>was trouble online, trouble at school, was it a girl, was it a—a |
| <I>boy</I>, what <I>was</I> it and why couldn't I just <I>trust</I> |
| my <I>own mother</I>, don't I know I can trust her with <I>anything</I>? |
| I waited out the persistent knocking and the insistent concerned |
| voice through the door and the final, grudging silence that followed. |
| I waited until I was absolutely sure she'd gone away, I waited for |
| five fucking <I>hours</I> before I came out and there she was, arms |
| folded in the hall, eyes brimming with reproach and disappointment. |
| That night she took the lock off the bathroom door because <I>family |
| should never shut each other out</I>. Still taking an interest.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri," Pag said quietly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I slowed my breathing, tried again: "She doesn't just want to |
| <I>talk</I> about family. She wants to <I>meet</I> them. She keeps |
| trying to drag me to meet <I>hers</I>. I thought I was hooking up |
| with <I>Chelsea</I>, you know, nobody ever told me I'd have to share |
| airspace with..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You do it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Once." Reaching, grasping things, feigning acceptance, |
| feigning <I>friendship</I>. "It was great, if you like being |
| ritually pawed by a bunch of play-acting strangers who can't stand |
| the sight of you and don't have the guts to admit it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag shrugged, unsympathetic. "Sounds like typical old-school |
| family. You're a synthesist, man. You deal with way wonkier |
| dynamics than <I>that</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I deal with <I>other people's</I> information. I don't vomit |
| my own personal life into the public sphere. Whatever hybrids and |
| the constructs I work with, they don't—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<I>touch—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Interrogate," I finished.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You knew Chelse was an old-fashioned girl right off the top."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, when it suits her." I gulped ale. "But she's |
| cutting-edge when she's got a splicer in her hand. Which isn't to |
| say that her strategies couldn't use some work."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Strategies."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>It's not a </I>strategy<I>, for God's sake! Can't you see I'm |
| </I>hurting<I>? I'm on the fucking </I>floor<I>, Siri, I'm curled up |
| in a ball because I'm hurting so much and all you can do is criticize |
| my </I>tactics<I>? What do I have to do, slash my goddamn </I>wrists? |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd shrugged and turned away. <I>Nature's trick</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She <I>cries</I>," I said now. "High blood-lactate |
| levels, makes it easy for her. It's just chemistry but she holds it |
| up like it was some kind of IOU."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag pursed his lips. "Doesn't mean it's an act."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Everything's an act. Everything's strategy. You know that." |
| I snorted. "And <I>she's</I> miffed because <I>I</I> base a |
| skin on her?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think it's so much the actual skin as the fact that you |
| didn't tell her. You know how she feels about honesty in |
| relationships."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sure. She doesn't want any."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Give me some credit, Pag. You think I should tell her that |
| sometimes the sight of her makes me shudder?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The system called Robert Paglino sat quietly, and sipped his drugs, |
| and set the things he was about to say in order. He took a breath.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can't believe you could be so fucking dumb," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah? Enlighten me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of <I>course</I> she wants you to tell her you only have eyes |
| for her, you love her pores and her morning breath, and why stop at |
| one tweak how about ten. But that doesn't mean she wants you to <I>lie</I>, |
| you idiot. She wants all that stuff to be <I>true</I>. And—well, |
| why <I>can't</I> it be?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It isn't," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Jesus</I>, Siri. People aren't <I>rational</I>. <I>You</I> |
| aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're—we're |
| feeling machines that happen to think." He took a breath, and |
| another hit. "And you already know that, or you couldn't do |
| your job. Or at least—" He grimaced— "the |
| system knows." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The system."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Me and my protocols, he meant. My <I>Chinese Room</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I took a breath. "It doesn't work with everyone, you know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So I've noticed. Can't read systems you're too entangled with, |
| right? Observer effect."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just as well," he said. "I don't think I'd like you |
| all that much in that <I>room</I> of yours."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It came out before I could stop it: "Chelse says she'd prefer a |
| <I>real</I> one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He raised his eyebrows. "Real what?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Chinese Room. She says it would have better comprehension."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Qube murmured and clattered around us for a few moments.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can see why she'd say that," Pag said at last. "But |
| you— you did okay, Pod-man."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I dunno."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded, emphatic. "You know what they say about the road |
| less traveled? Well, you carved your <I>own</I> road. I don't know |
| why. It's like learning calligraphy using your toes, you know? Or |
| proprioceptive polyneuropathy. It's amazing you can do it at all; |
| it's <I>mindboggling</I> that you actually got <I>good</I> at it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I squinted at him. "Proprio—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There used to be people without any sense of—well, of |
| themselves, physically. They couldn't feel their bodies in space, |
| had no idea how their own limbs were arranged or even if they <I>had</I> |
| limbs. Some of them said they felt <I>pithed</I>. Disembodied. |
| They'd send a motor signal to the hand and just have to take it on |
| faith that it arrived. So they'd use vision to compensate; they |
| couldn't feel where the hand was so they'd <I>look </I>at it while it |
| moved, use sight as a substitute for the normal force-feedback you |
| and I take for granted. They could walk, if they kept their eyes |
| focused on their legs and concentrated on every step. They'd get |
| pretty good at it. But even after years of practice, if you |
| distracted them in mid-step they'd go over like a beanstalk without a |
| counterweight."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're saying I'm like that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You use your <I>Chinese room</I> the way they used vision. |
| You've reinvented empathy, almost from scratch, and in some ways—not |
| <I>all</I> obviously, or I wouldn't have to tell you this—but |
| in some ways yours is better than the original. It's why you're so |
| good at synthesis."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shook my head. "I just observe, that's all. I watch what |
| people do, and then I imagine what would make them do that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sounds like empathy to me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not. Empathy's not so much about imagining how the other |
| guy feels. It's more about imagining how <I>you'd</I> feel in the |
| same place, right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pag frowned. "So?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what if you don't <I>know</I> how you'd feel?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked at me, and his surfaces were serious and completely |
| transparent. "You're better than that, friend. You may not |
| always act like it, but—I know you. I knew you <I>before</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You knew someone else. I'm <I>Pod-man</I>, remember?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, that was someone else. And maybe I remember him better |
| than you do. But I'll tell you one thing." He leaned forward. |
| "<I>Both</I> of you would've helped me out that day. And maybe |
| he would've got there with good ol'-fashioned empathy while you had |
| to cobble together some kind of improvised flowchart out of surplus |
| parts, but that just makes your accomplishment all the greater. |
| Which is why I continue to stick it out with you, old buddy. Even |
| though you have a rod up your ass the size of the Rio Spire."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He held out his glass. Dutifully, I clinked it against my own. We |
| drank.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't remember him," I said after a while.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, the other Siri? Pre-Pod Siri?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nothing at all?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought back. "Well, he was wracked by convulsions all the |
| time, right? There'd be constant pain. I don't remember any pain." |
| My glass was almost empty; I sipped to make it last. "I—I |
| dream about him sometimes, though. About— <I>being</I> him."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's it like?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was—colorful. Everything was more saturated, you |
| know? Sounds, smells. Richer than life."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And now?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked at him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You said it <I>was</I> colorful. What changed?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know. Maybe nothing. I just— I don't actually |
| remember the dreams when I wake up any more."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So how do you know you still have them?" Pag asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Fuck it</I> I thought, and tipped back the last of my pint in a |
| single gulp. "I know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I frowned, taken aback. I had to think for a few moments before I |
| remembered. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I wake up smiling," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Grunts |
| look the enemy in the eye. Grunts know the stakes. Grunts know the |
| price of poor strategy. What do the generals know? Overlays and |
| Tactical plots. The whole chain of command is upside-down."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Kenneth |
| Lubin, Zero Sum</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It went bad from the moment we breached. The plan had called for |
| precise havoc along the new beachhead, subtly arranged to entrap some |
| blood-cell-with-waldoes as it sought to repair the damage. Our job |
| had been to set the trap and stand back, trusting Sarasti's |
| assurances that we would not have long to wait.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We had no time at all. Something squirmed in the swirling dust the |
| moment we breached, serpentine movement down the hole that instantly |
| kicked Bates renowned <I>field initiative</I> into high gear. Her |
| grunts dived through and caught a scrambler twitching in their |
| crosshairs, clinging to the wall of the passageway. It must have |
| been stunned by the blast of our entry, a classic case of |
| wrong-place-wrong-time. Bates took a split-second to appraise the |
| opportunity and the plan was plasma. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One of the grunts plugged the scrambler with a biopsy dart before I |
| even had a chance to blink. We would have bagged the whole animal |
| right then if <I>Rorschach</I>'s<I> </I>magnetosphere hadn't chosen |
| that moment to kick sand in our faces. As it was, by the time our |
| grunts staggered back into action their quarry was already |
| disappearing around the bend. Bates was tethered to her troops; they |
| yanked her down the rabbit hole ("<I>Set it up!</I>" she |
| yelled back at Sascha) the moment she let them loose.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was tethered to Bates. I barely had a chance to exchange a |
| wide-eyed look with Sascha before being yanked away in turn. |
| Suddenly I was <I>inside</I> again; the sated biopsy dart bounced off |
| my faceplate and flashed past, still attached to a few meters of |
| discarded monofilament. Hopefully Sascha would pick it up while |
| Bates and I were hunting; at least the mission wouldn't be a total |
| loss if we never made it back.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The grunts dragged us like bait on a hook. Bates flew like a dolphin |
| just ahead of me, keeping effortlessly to the center of the bore with |
| an occasional tweak of her jets. I careened off the walls just |
| behind, trying to stabilize myself, trying to look as though I too |
| might be in control. It was an important pretense. The whole point |
| of being a decoy is to pass yourself off as an original. They'd even |
| given me my own gun, pure precaution of course, more for comfort |
| than protection. It hugged my forearm and fired plastic slugs |
| impervious to induction fields.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Just Bates and I, now. A pacifist soldier, and the odds of a coin |
| toss.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Gooseflesh prickled my skin as it always had. The usual ghosts |
| scrabbled and clawed through my mind. This time, though, the dread |
| seemed muted. Distant. Perhaps it was just a matter of timing, |
| perhaps we were moving so quickly through the magnetic landscape that |
| no one phantom had a chance to stick. Or maybe it was something |
| else. Maybe I wasn't so afraid of ghosts because this time we were |
| after monsters<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The scrambler seemed to have thrown off whatever cobwebs our entrance |
| had spun; it surged along the walls now at full speed, its arms |
| shooting ahead like a succession of striking snakes, slinging the |
| body forward so fast the drones could barely keep it in sight, a |
| writhing silhouette in the fog. Suddenly it leapt sideways, sailing |
| across the width of the passageway and down some minor tributary. |
| The grunts veered in pursuit, crashing into walls, stumbling—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —stopping—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and suddenly Bates was braking hard, shooting back past me as |
| I flailed with my pistol. I was past the drones in the next instant; |
| my leash snapped tight and snapped back, bringing me to a dead |
| drifting stop. For a second or two I was on the front line. For a |
| second or two I <I>was</I> the front line, Siri Keeton, note taker, |
| mole, professional uncomprehender. I just floated there, breath |
| roaring in my helmet, as a few meters further on the walls— |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Squirmed...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Peristalsis</I>, I thought at first. But this motion was utterly |
| unlike the slow, undulating waves that usually rippled along |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s passageways. So <I>hallucination</I>, I thought |
| instead— and then those writhing walls reached out with a |
| thousand whiplike calcareous tongues that grabbed our quarry from |
| every direction and <I>tore it to pieces</I>...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something grabbed me and spun me around. Suddenly I was locked |
| against the chest of one of the grunts, its rear guns firing as we |
| retreated back up the tunnel at full speed. Bates was in the arms of |
| the other. Seething motion receded behind us but the image stayed |
| stuck to the backs of my eyes, hallucinatory and point-blank in its |
| clarity:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Scramblers, everywhere. A seething infestation squirming across the |
| walls, reaching out for the intruder, leaping into the lumen of the |
| passageway to press their counterattack. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not against us. They had attacked one of their own. I'd seen three |
| of its arms ripped off before it had disappeared into a writhing ball |
| in the center of the passageway.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We fled. I turned to Bates—<I>Did you see</I>—but held |
| my tongue. The deathly concentration on her face was unmistakable |
| even across two faceplates and three meters of methane. According to |
| HUD she'd lobotomized both grunts, bypassed all that wonderful |
| autonomous decision-making circuitry entirely. She was running both |
| machines herself, as manually as marionettes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Grainy turbulent echoes appeared on the rear sonar display. The |
| scramblers had finished with their sacrifice. Now they were coming |
| after us. My grunt stumbled and careened against the side of the |
| passage. Jagged shards of alien décor dug parallel gouges |
| across my faceplate, tenderized chunks of thigh through the shielded |
| fabric of my suit. I clenched down on a cry. It got out anyway. |
| Some ridiculous in-suit alarm chirped indignantly an instant before a |
| dozen rotten eggs broke open inside my helmet. I coughed. My eyes |
| stung and watered in the reek; I could barely see <I>Seiverts</I> on |
| the HUD, flashing instantly into the red. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates drove us on without a word.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My faceplate healed enough to shut off the alarm. My air began to |
| clear. The scramblers had gained; by the time I could see clearly |
| again they were only a few meters behind us. Up ahead Sascha came |
| into view around the bend, Sascha who had no backup, whose other |
| cores had all been shut down on Sarasti's orders. Susan had |
| protested at first—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If there's any opportunity to communicate—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There won't be," he'd said. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —so there was Sascha who was <I>more resistant to Rorschach</I>'s |
| <I>influence</I> according to some criterion I never understood, |
| curled up in a fetal ball with her gloves clamped against her helmet |
| and I could only hope to some dusty deity that she'd set the trap |
| before this place had got to her. And here came the scramblers, and |
| Bates was shouting "<I>Sascha! Get out of the fucking way!</I>" |
| and braking hard, way too soon, the scrambling horde nipping at our |
| heels like a riptide and Bates yelled "<I>Sascha</I>!" |
| again and finally Sascha moved, kicked herself into gear and off the |
| nearest wall and fled right back up the hole we'd blown in through. |
| Bates yanked some joystick in her head and our warrior sedans slewed |
| and shat sparks and bullets and dove out after her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha had set the trap just within the mouth of the breach. Bates |
| armed it in passing with the slap of one gloved hand. Motion sensors |
| were supposed to do the rest— but the enemy was close behind, |
| and there was no room to spare.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It went off just as I was emerging into the vestibule. The cannon |
| net shot out behind me in a glorious exploding conic, caught |
| something, snapped back up the rabbit hole and slammed into my grunt |
| from behind. The recoil kicked us against the top of the vestibule |
| so hard I thought the fabric would tear. It held, and threw us back |
| against the squirming things enmeshed in our midst.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Writhing backbones everywhere. Articulated arms, lashing like bony |
| whips. One of them entwined my leg and <I>squeezed</I> like a brick |
| python. Bates' hands waved in a frantic dance before me and that arm |
| came apart into dismembered segments, bouncing around the enclosure.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This was all wrong. They were supposed to be in the net, they were |
| supposed to be <I>contained</I>...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Sascha! Launch!</I>" Bates barked. Another arm |
| separated from its body and careened into the wall, coiling and |
| uncoiling.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The hole had flooded with aerosol foam-core as soon as we'd pulled |
| the net. A scrambler writhed half-embedded in that matrix, caught |
| just a split-second too late; its central mass protruded like some |
| great round tumor writhing with monstrous worms. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>SASCHA!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Artillery. The floor of the vestibule irised shut quick as a |
| leg-hold trap and everything slammed against it, grunts, people, |
| scramblers whole and in pieces. I couldn't breathe. Every |
| thimbleful of flesh weighed a hundred kilograms. Something slapped |
| us to one side, a giant hand batting an insect. Maybe a course |
| correction. Maybe a collision.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But ten seconds later we were weightless again, and nothing had torn |
| us open.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We floated like mites in a ping-pong ball, surrounded by a confusion |
| of machinery and twitching body parts. There was little of anything |
| that might pass for blood. What there was floated in clear, |
| shuddering spherules. The cannon net floated like a shrink-wrapped |
| asteroid in our midst. The things inside had wrapped their arms |
| around themselves, around each other, curled into a shivering and |
| unresponsive ball. Compressed methonia hissed around them, keeping |
| them fresh for the long trip home. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Holy <I>shit</I>," Sascha breathed, watching them. "The |
| bloodsucker called it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He hadn't called everything. He hadn't called a mob of multiarmed |
| aliens ripping one of their own to pieces before my eyes. He hadn't |
| seen <I>that</I> coming.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Or at least, he hadn't mentioned it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was already feeling nauseous. Bates was carefully bringing her |
| wrists together. For a moment I could barely make out a taut dark |
| thread of freakwire, fine as smoke, between them. Her caution was |
| well-advised; that stuff would slice through human limbs as easily as |
| alien ones. One of the grunts groomed its mouthparts at her |
| shoulder, cleaning gore from its mandibles. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The freakwire vanished from my sight. Sight itself was dimming, now. |
| The inside of this great lead balloon was going dark around me. We |
| were coasting, purely ballistic. We had to trust that <I>Scylla |
| </I>would swoop in and snatch us once we'd achieved a discreet |
| distance from the scene of the crime. We had to trust Sarasti.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was getting harder by the hour. But he'd been right so far. |
| Mostly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you <I>know</I>?" Bates had asked when he'd first |
| laid out the plan. He hadn't answered. Chances are he couldn't |
| have, not to us, any more than a baseline could have explained brane |
| theory to the inhabitants of Flatland. But Bates hadn't been asking |
| about tactics anyway, not really. Maybe she'd been asking for a |
| <I>reason</I>, for something to justify this ongoing trespass into |
| foreign soil, the capture and slaughter of its natives.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On one level she already knew the reason, of course. We all did. We |
| could not afford to merely react. The risks were too great; we had |
| to <I>preempt</I>. Sarasti, wise beyond all of us, saw this more |
| clearly than we. Amanda Bates knew he was right in her mind—but |
| perhaps she didn't feel it in her gut. Perhaps, I thought as my |
| vision failed, she was asking Sarasti to convince her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But that wasn't all she was doing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you are Amanda Bates.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The control you wield over your troops would give wet dreams and |
| nightmares to generals of ages past. You can drop instantly into the |
| sensorium of anyone under your command, experience the battlefield |
| from any number of first-person perspectives. Your every soldier is |
| loyal unto death, asking no questions, obeying all commands with |
| alacrity and dedication to which mere flesh could never even aspire. |
| You don't just respect a chain of command: you <I>are</I> one.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You are a little bit scared of your own power. You are a little bit |
| scared of the things you've already done with it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Taking orders comes as naturally as giving them. Oh, you've been |
| known to question policy on occasion, or seek a bigger picture than |
| may be strictly necessary for the job at hand. Your <I>command |
| initiative </I>has become the stuff of legends. But you have never |
| disobeyed a direct order. When asked for your perspective, you |
| serve it straight up and unvarnished— until the decision is |
| made, and the orders handed down. Then you do your job without |
| question. Even when questions arise, you would hardly waste time |
| asking them unless you expected an answer you could use. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Why, then, demand analytical details from a <I>vampire</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not for information. Might as well expect the sighted to explain |
| vision to the congenitally blind. Not for clarification; there was |
| no ambiguity in Sarasti's bottom line. Not even for the benefit of |
| poor dumb Siri Keeton, who may have missed some salient point but is |
| too ashamed to raise his own hand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No, there is only one reason why you might ask for such details: to |
| <I>challenge</I>. To rebel, to the infinitesimal degree that |
| rebellion is permitted once the word is given.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You argued and advocated as forcefully as you could, back when |
| Sarasti was soliciting input. But he ignored yours, abandoned any |
| attempt at communication and preemptively invaded foreign territory. |
| He knew that <I>Rorschach</I> might contain living beings and still |
| he tore it open without regard for their welfare. He may have killed |
| helpless innocents. He may have roused an angry giant. You don't |
| know.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| All you know is, you've been helping him do it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You've seen this kind of arrogance before, among your own kind. You |
| had hoped that smarter creatures would be wiser ones. Bad enough to |
| see such arrogant stupidity inflicted on the helpless, but to do it |
| at these stakes beggars belief. Killing innocents is the <I>least</I> |
| of the risks you're running; you're gambling with the fate of worlds, |
| provoking conflict with a star faring technology whose sole offense |
| was to take your picture without permission.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Your dissent has changed nothing. So you rein it in; all that slips |
| out now is the occasional pointless question with no hope of an |
| answer, its inherent insubordination so deeply buried you don't even |
| see it yourself. If you did see it, you'd keep your mouth shut |
| entirely—because the last thing you want is to remind Sarasti |
| that you think he's <I>wrong</I>. You don't want him dwelling on |
| that. You don't want him to think you're up to something.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because you are. Even if you're not quite ready to admit it to |
| yourself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Amanda Bates is beginning to contemplate a change of command.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The laceration of my suit had done a real number on the gears. It |
| took three solid days for <I>Theseus</I> to bring me back to life. |
| But death was no excuse for falling behind the curve; I resurrected |
| with a head full of updates clogging my inlays.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I flipped through them, climbing down into the drum. The Gang of |
| Four sat at the galley below me, staring at untouched portions of |
| nutritionally-balanced sludge on her plate. Cunningham, over in his |
| inherited domain, grunted at my appearance and turned back to work, |
| the fingers of one hand tapping compulsively on the desktop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I>' orbit had widened during my absence, and most of its |
| eccentricities had been planed away. Now we kept our target in view |
| from a more-or-less constant range of three thousand kilometers. Our |
| orbital period lagged <I>Rorschach</I>'s by an hour—the alien |
| crept implacably ahead of us along its lower trajectory—but a |
| supplementary burn every couple of weeks would be enough to keep it |
| in sight. We had <I>specimens </I>now, things to be examined under |
| conditions of our own choosing; no point in risking any more close |
| approaches until we'd wrung every useful datum from what we had.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham had expanded his lab space during my time in the |
| sepulcher. He'd built holding pens, one for each scrambler, modules |
| partitioned by a common wall and installed in a whole new hab. The |
| microwaved carcass had been sidelined like a discarded toy from a |
| previous birthday, although according to the access logs Cunningham |
| still visited it every now and then. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not that he visited <I>any</I> part of the new wing in person, of |
| course. Not that he was even able to, not without suiting up and |
| jumping across the hold. The whole compartment had been disconnected |
| from its spinal lock and pushed to a tethered anchorage midway |
| between spine and carapace: Sarasti's orders, given to <I>minimize |
| risk of contamination</I>. It was no skin off Cunningham's nose. He |
| was happier leaving his body in pseudogravity anyway, while his |
| consciousness flitted between the waldoes and sensors and bric-a-brac |
| surrounding his new pets.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> saw me coming and pushed a squeezebulb of sugary |
| electrolytes from the galley dispenser. The Gang didn't look up as I |
| passed. One forefinger tapped absently against their temple, the |
| lips pursed and twitched in the characteristic mode that said |
| <I>internal dialog in progress</I>. I could never tell who was on |
| top when they were like that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I sucked on the squeezebulb and looked in on the pens. Two cubes |
| suffused in pale red light: in one a scrambler floated center stage, |
| waving its segmented arms like seaweed in gentle surge. The occupant |
| of the other cage was squeezed into a corner, four arms splayed |
| across the converging walls; four others extended, waving again, into |
| open space. The bodies from which those arms sprouted were |
| spheroids, not flattened disks as our first—sample had been. |
| They were only slightly compressed, and their arms sprouted not from |
| a single equatorial band but from across the whole surface.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fully-extended, the floating scrambler was over two meters across. |
| The other seemed roughly the same size. Neither moved, except for |
| those drifting arms. Navy-blue mosaics, almost black in the |
| longwave, rippled across their surfaces like the patterns of wind on |
| grass. Superimposed graphics plotted methane and hydrogen at |
| reassuring <I>Rorschach</I> norms. Temperature and lighting, ditto. |
| An icon for ambient electromagnetics remained dark.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I dipped into the archives, watched the arrival of the aliens from |
| two days past; each tumbling unceremoniously into its pen, balled up, |
| hugging themselves as they bounced gently around their enclosures. |
| <I>Fetal position</I>, I thought—but after a few moments the |
| arms uncoiled, like the blooming of calcareous flowers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Robert says <I>Rorschach</I> grows them," Susan James |
| said behind me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned. Definitely James in there, but—muted, somehow. Her |
| meal remained untouched. Her surfaces were dim.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except for the eyes. Those were deep, and a little hollow. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Grows?" I repeated.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "In stacks. They have two navels each." She managed a |
| weak smile, touched her belly with one hand and the small of her back |
| with the other. "One in front, one behind. He thinks they |
| grow in a kind of column, piled up. When the top one develops to a |
| certain point, it buds off from the stack and becomes free-living."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The archived scramblers were exploring their new environment now, |
| climbing gingerly along the walls, unrolling their arms along the |
| corners where the panels met. Those swollen central bodies struck me |
| again. "So that first one, with the flattened..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Juvenile," she agreed. "Fresh off the stack. These |
| ones are older. They, they plump out as they mature. Robert says," |
| she added after a moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I sucked the dregs from my squeezebulb. "The ship grows its own |
| crew."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If it's a ship." James shrugged. "If they're crew."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I watched them move. There wasn't much to explore; the walls were |
| almost bare, innocent of anything but a few sensor heads and gas |
| nozzles. The pens had their own tentacles and manipulators for more |
| invasive research needs, but those had been carefully sheathed during |
| introduction. Still, the creatures covered the territory in careful |
| increments, moving back and forth along parallel, invisible paths. |
| Almost as if they were running transects.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James had noticed it too. "It seems awfully systematic, doesn't |
| it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What does Robert say about that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He says the behavior of honeybees and sphex wasps is just as |
| complex, and it's all rote hardwiring. Not intelligence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But bees still <I>communicate</I>, right? They do that dance, |
| to tell the hive where the flowers are."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shrugged, conceding the point.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you still might be able to talk to these things."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe. You'd think." She massaged her brow between thumb |
| and forefinger. "We haven't got anywhere, though. We played |
| some of their pigment patterns back to them, with variations. They |
| don't seem to make sounds. Robert synthesized a bunch of noises that |
| they might squeeze out of their cloacae if they were so inclined, but |
| those didn't get us anywhere either. Harmonic farts, really." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we're sticking to the blood-cells-with-waldoes model."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Pretty much. But you know, they didn't go into a loop. |
| Hardwired animals repeat themselves. Even smart ones pace, or chew |
| their fur. Stereotyped behaviors. But these two, they gave |
| everything a very careful once-over and then just—shut down."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They were still at it in ConSensus, slithering across one wall, then |
| another, then another, a slow screw-thread track that would leave no |
| square centimeter uncovered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Have they done anything since?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shrugged again. "Nothing spectacular. They squirm when you |
| poke them. Wave their arms back and forth—they do that pretty |
| much constantly, but there's no information in it that we can tell. |
| They haven't gone invisible on us or anything. We blanked the |
| adjoining wall for a while so they could see each other, even piped |
| audio and air feeds—Robert thought there might be some kind of |
| pheromonal communication—but nothing. They didn't even react |
| to each other."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Have you tried, well, <I>motivating</I> them?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "With what, Siri? They don't seem to care about their own |
| company. We can't bribe them with food unless we know what they eat, |
| which we don't. Robert says they're in no immediate danger of |
| starvation anyway. Maybe when they get hungry they can deal."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I killed the archival feed and reverted to realtime. "Maybe |
| they eat—I don't know, radiation. Or magnetic energy. The |
| cage can generate magnetic fields, right?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Tried it." She took a breath, then squared her shoulders. |
| "But I guess these things take time. He's only had a couple of |
| days, and I only got out of the crypt myself a day ago. We'll keep |
| trying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What about negative reinforcement?" I wondered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She blinked. "Hurt them, you mean."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not necessarily anything extreme. And if they're not sentient |
| anyway..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Just like that, Susan went away. "Why, Keeton. you just made a |
| <I>suggestion</I>. You giving up on this whole <I>noninterference</I> |
| thing?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hello, Sascha. No, of course not. Just—making a list of |
| what's been tried."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Good." There was an edge to her voice. "Hate to |
| think you were slipping. We're going to grab some down time now, so |
| maybe you could go and talk to Cunningham for a bit. Yeah, do that. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And be sure to tell him your theory about radiation-eating |
| aliens. I bet he could use a laugh."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He stood at his post in BioMed, though his empty chair was barely a |
| meter away. The ubiquitous cigarette hung from between the fingers |
| of one hand, burned down and burned out. His other hand played with |
| itself, fingers tapping against thumb in sequence, little to index, |
| index to little. Windows crawled with intelligence in front of him; |
| he wasn't watching. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I approached from behind. I watched his surfaces in motion. I heard |
| the soft syllables rising from his throat:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Yit-barah v'yish-tabah v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-romam...</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not his usual litany. Not even his usual language; Hebrew, |
| ConSensus said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It sounded almost like a <I>prayer</I>...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He must have heard me. His topology went flat and hard and almost |
| impossible to decipher. It was increasingly difficult getting a fix |
| on anyone these days, but even through those topological cataracts |
| Cunningham— as always— was a tougher read than most.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Keeton," he said without turning.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're not Jewish," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>It</I> was." <I>Szpindel</I>, I realized after a |
| moment. Cunningham didn't do gender pronouns. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Isaac Szpindel had been an atheist. All of us were. We'd all |
| started out that way, at least.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I didn't know you knew him," I said. It certainly wasn't |
| policy.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham sank into his chair without looking at me. In his head, |
| and in mine, a new window opened within a frame marked |
| <I>Electrophoresis</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intru—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What can I do for you, Siri?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I was hoping you could bring me up to speed on your findings."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A periodic chart of alien elements scrolled through the feed. |
| Cunningham logged it and started another sample. "I've |
| documented everything. It's all in ConSensus."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I made a play for ego: "It would really help to know how <I>you'd</I> |
| thumbnail it, though. What you think is important can be just as |
| vital as the data themselves."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked at me a moment. He muttered something, repetitive and |
| irrelevant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's important is what's <I>missing</I>," he said after |
| a moment. "I've got good samples now and I still can't find the |
| genes. Protein synthesis is almost prionic—reconformation |
| instead of the usual transcription pathways—but I can't figure |
| out how those bricks get slotted into the wall once they're made."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Any progress on the energy front?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Energy?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Aerobic metabolism on an anaerobe budget, remember? You said |
| they had too much ATP."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That I solved." He puffed smoke; far to stern a fleck of |
| alien tissue liquefied and banded into chemical strata. "They're |
| sprinting."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rotate </I>that<I> if you can</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't. "How do you mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He sighed. "Biochemistry is a tradeoff. The faster you |
| synthesize ATP, the more expensive each molecule becomes. It turns |
| out scramblers are a lot more energy-efficient at making it than we |
| are. They're just extremely slow at it, which might not be a big |
| drawback for something that spends most of its time inactive. |
| <I>Rorschach—</I>whatever <I>Rorschach</I> started out as— |
| could have drifted for millennia before it washed up here. That's a |
| lot of time to build up an energy reserve for bouts of high activity, |
| and once you've laid the groundwork glycolysis is <I>explosive</I>. |
| Two-thousand-fold boost, and no oxygen demand."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Scramblers <I>sprint</I>. Their whole lives." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They may come preloaded with ATP and burn it off throughout |
| their lifespan."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How long would that be?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Good question," he admitted. "Live fast, die young. |
| If they ration it out, stay dormant most of the time—who |
| knows?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Huh." The free-floating scrambler had drifted away from |
| the center of its pen. One extended arm held a wall at bay; the |
| others continued their hypnotic swaying.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I remembered other arms, their motion not so gentle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Amanda and I chased one into a crowd. It—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham was back at his samples. "I saw the record."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They tore it to pieces."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Uh huh."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Any idea why?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He shrugged. "Bates thought there might be some kind of civil |
| war going on down there."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do you think?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know. Maybe it's right, or maybe scramblers are ritual |
| cannibals, or—they're <I>aliens</I>, Keeton. What do you want |
| from me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But they're not <I>really</I> aliens. At least not intelligent |
| ones. <I>War</I> implies intelligence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ants wage war all the time. Proves nothing except that they're |
| alive."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are <I>scramblers</I> even alive?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What kind of question is that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You think <I>Rorschach</I> grows them on some kind of assembly |
| line. You can't find any genes. Maybe they're just biomechanical |
| machines."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's what life <I>is</I>, Keeton. That's what <I>you</I> |
| are." Another hit of nicotine, another storm of numbers, another |
| sample. "Life isn't either/or. It's a matter of degree."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What I'm asking is, are they <I>natural</I>? Could they be |
| constructs?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Is a termite mound a construct? Beaver dam? Space ship? Of |
| course. Were they built by naturally-evolved organisms, acting |
| naturally? They were. So tell me how anything in the whole deep |
| multiverse can ever be anything <I>but </I>natural?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. "You know what |
| I mean."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's a meaningless question. Get your head out of the |
| Twentieth Century."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I gave up. After a few seconds Cunningham seemed to notice the |
| silence. He withdrew his consciousness from the machinery and looked |
| around with fleshly eyes, as if searching for some mosquito that had |
| mysteriously stopped whining.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's your problem with me?" I asked. Stupid question, |
| obvious question. Unworthy of any synthesist to be so, so <I>direct</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His eyes glittered in that dead face. "Processing without |
| comprehension. That's what you do, isn't it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's a colossal oversimplification."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mmm." Cunningham nodded. "Then why can't you seem |
| to <I>comprehend</I> how pointless it is to keep peeking over our |
| shoulders and writing home to our masters?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Someone has to keep Earth in the loop."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Seven months each way. Long loop." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Still."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're on our own out here, Keeton. <I>You're</I> on your own. |
| The game's going to be long over before our masters even know it's |
| started." He sucked smoke. "Or perhaps not. Perhaps |
| you're talking to someone closer, hmm? That it? Is the Fourth Wave |
| telling you what to do?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There is no Fourth Wave. Not that anyone's told me, anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably not. They'd never risk <I>their</I> lives out here, |
| would they? Too dangerous even to hang back and watch from a |
| distance. That's why they built <I>us</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We're all self-made. Nobody forced you to get the rewire."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, nobody <I>forced</I> me to get the rewire. I could have |
| just let them cut out my brain and pack it into Heaven, couldn't I? |
| That's the <I>choice</I> we have. We can be utterly useless, or we |
| can try and compete against the vampires and the constructs and the |
| AIs. And perhaps <I>you</I> could tell me how to do that without |
| turning into a—an utter freak."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So much in the voice. Nothing at all on the face. I said nothing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "See what I mean? No comprehension." He managed a tight |
| smile. "So I'll answer your questions. I'll delay my own work |
| and hold your hand because Sarasti's told us to. I guess that |
| superior vampire mind sees some legitimate reason to indulge your |
| constant ankle-nipping, and it's in charge so I'll play along. But |
| I'm not nearly that smart, so you'll forgive me if it all seems a bit |
| naff." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm just—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're just doing your job. I know. But I don't like being |
| <I>played</I>, Keeton. And that's what your job <I>is</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Even back on Earth, Robert Cunningham had barely disguised his |
| opinion of the ship's <I>commissar</I>. It had been obvious even to |
| the topologically blind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd always had a hard time imagining the man. It wasn't just his |
| expressionless face. Sometimes, not even the subtler things behind |
| would show up in his topology. Perhaps he repressed them |
| deliberately, resenting the presence of this mole among the crew.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It would hardly have been the first time I'd encountered such a |
| reaction. Everyone resented me to some extent. Oh, they liked me |
| well enough, or thought they did. They tolerated my intrusions, and |
| cooperated, and gave away far more than they thought they did. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But beneath Szpindel's gruff camaraderie, beneath James's patient |
| explanations—there was no real respect. How could there be? |
| These people were the bleeding edge, the incandescent apex of hominid |
| achievement. They were trusted with the fate of the world. I was |
| just a tattletale for small minds back home. Not even that much, |
| when home receded too deeply into the distance. Superfluous mass. |
| Couldn't be helped. No use getting bothered over it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Still, Szpindel had only coined <I>commissar</I> half-jokingly. |
| Cunningham <I>believed</I> it, and didn't laugh. And while I'd |
| encountered many others like him over the years, those had only <I>tried</I> |
| to hide themselves from sight. Cunningham was the first who seemed |
| to succeed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to build the relationship all the way through training, tried |
| to find the missing pieces. I watched him working the simulator's |
| teleops one day, exercising the shiny new interfaces that spread him |
| through walls and wires. He was practicing his surgical skills on |
| some hypothetical alien the computer had conjured up to test his |
| technique. Sensors and jointed teleops sprouted like the legs of an |
| enormous spider crab from an overhead mount. Spirit-possessed, they |
| dipped and weaved around some semiplausible holographic creature. |
| Cunningham's own body merely trembled slightly, a cigarette jiggling |
| at the corner of its mouth.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I waited for him to take a break. Eventually the tension ebbed from |
| his shoulders. His vicarious limbs relaxed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So." I tapped my temple. "Why'd <I>you</I> do it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He didn't turn. Above the dissection, sensors swiveled and stared |
| back like dismembered eyestalks. <I>That</I> was the center of |
| Cunningham's awareness right now, not this nicotine-stained body in |
| front of me. <I>Those </I>were his eyes, or his tongue, or whatever |
| unimaginable bastard-senses he used to parse what the machines sent |
| him. Those clusters aimed back at me, at <I>us</I>—and if |
| Robert Cunningham still possessed anything that might be called |
| vision, he was watching himself from eyes two meters outside his own |
| skull. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do what, exactly?" he said at last. "The |
| enhancements?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Enhancements</I>. As though he'd upgraded his wardrobe instead of |
| ripping out his senses and grafting new ones into the wounds.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's vital to keep current," he said. "If you don't |
| reconfigure you can't retrain. If you don’t retrain you're |
| obsolete inside a month, and then you're not much good for anything |
| except Heaven or dictation."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I ignored the jibe. "Pretty radical transformation, though."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not these days."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Didn't it <I>change</I> you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His body dragged on the cigarette. Targeted ventilation sucked away |
| the smoke before it reached me. "That's the whole point." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Surely you were affected personally, though. Surely—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah." He nodded; at the far end of shared motor nerves, |
| teleops jiggled in sympathy. "Change the eyes that look at the |
| world, change the <I>me</I> does the looking?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Something like that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now he was watching me with fleshly eyes. Across the membrane those |
| snakes and eyestalks returned to their work on the virtual carcass, |
| as if deciding they'd wasted enough time on pointless distractions. |
| I wondered which body he was in now. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm surprised you'd have to ask," the meat one said. |
| "Doesn't my body language tell you everything? Aren't |
| jargonauts supposed to read minds?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He was right, of course. I wasn't interested in Cunningham's <I>words</I>; |
| those were just the carrier wave. He couldn't hear the <I>real</I> |
| conversation we were having. All his angles and surfaces spoke |
| volumes, and although their voices were strangely fuzzed with |
| feedback and distortion I knew I'd be able to understand them |
| eventually. I only had to keep him talking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Jukka Sarasti chose that moment to wander past and surgically |
| trash my best-laid plans. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri's best in his field," he remarked. "But not |
| when it gets too close to home." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Why |
| should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above |
| him when he shows no mercy to what is under him? </FONT></FONT> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Pierre |
| Troubetzkoy</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The thing is," Chelsea said, "this whole first-person |
| thing takes <I>effort</I>. You have to care enough to <I>try</I>, |
| you know? I've been working my ass off on this relationship, I've |
| been working so hard, but you just don't seem to <I>care</I>..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She thought she was breaking the news. She thought I hadn't seen it |
| coming, because I hadn't said anything. I'd probably seen it before |
| she had. I hadn't said anything because I'd been scared of giving |
| her an opening.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt sick to my stomach.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I care about you," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As much as you could care about anything," she admitted. |
| "But you—I mean, sometimes you're fine, Cygnus, sometimes |
| you're wonderful to be around but whenever anything gets the least |
| bit intense you just go away and leave this, this <I>battle computer</I> |
| running your body and I just can't <I>deal</I> with it any more..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I stared at the butterfly on the back of her hand. Its wings flexed |
| and folded, lazy and iridescent. I wondered how many of those |
| tattoos she had; I'd seen five of them on different body parts, |
| albeit only one at a time. I thought about asking her, but this |
| didn't seem like the right moment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You can be so—so brutal sometimes," she was saying. |
| "I know you don't mean to be, but... I don't know. Maybe I'm |
| your pressure-release valve, or something. Maybe you have to |
| submerge yourself so much on the job that everything just, just |
| builds up and you need some kind of punching bag. Maybe that's why |
| you say the things you do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She was waiting for me to say something now. "I've been |
| honest," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah. Pathologically. Have you ever had a negative thought |
| that you <I>haven't</I> said out loud?" Her voice trembled but |
| her eyes—for once— stayed dry. "I guess it's as |
| much my fault as yours. Maybe more. I could tell you |
| were—disconnected, from the day we met. I guess on some level |
| I always saw it coming."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why even try, then? If you knew we were just going to crash |
| and burn like this?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, Cygnus. Aren't you the one who says that <I>everyone</I> |
| crashes and burns eventually? Aren't you the one who says it <I>never</I> |
| lasts?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Mom and Dad lasted</I>. <I>Longer than this, anyway</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I frowned, astonished that I'd even let the thought form in my head. |
| Chelse read the silence as a wounded one. "I guess—maybe |
| I thought I could help, you know? Help fix whatever made you so—so |
| <I>angry</I> all the time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The butterfly was starting to fade. I'd never seen that happen |
| before.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you understand what I'm saying?" she asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sure. I'm a fixer-upper." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri, you wouldn't even get a tweak when I offered. You were |
| so scared of being <I>manipulated</I> you wouldn't even try a basic |
| cascade. You're the one guy I've met who might be truly, eternally |
| unfixable. I dunno. Maybe that's even something to be proud of."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I opened my mouth, and closed it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She gave me a sad smile. "Nothing, Siri? Nothing at all? |
| There was a time you always knew exactly what to say." She |
| looked back at some earlier version of me. "Now I wonder if you |
| ever actually meant any of it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's not fair."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No." She pursed her lips. "No, it isn't. That's |
| not really what I'm trying to say. I guess...it's not so much that |
| you don't <I>mean</I> any of it. It's more like you don't know what |
| any of it <I>means</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The color was gone from the wings. The butterfly was a delicate |
| charcoal dusting, almost motionless.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'll do it now," I said. "I'll get the tweaks. If |
| it's that important to you. I'll do it now."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's too late, Siri. I'm used up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe she wanted me to call her back. All these words ending in |
| question marks, all these significant silences. Maybe she was giving |
| me the opportunity to plead my case, to beg for another chance. |
| Maybe she wanted a reason to change her mind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could have tried. <I>Please don't</I>, I could have said. <I>I'm |
| begging you</I>. <I>I never meant to drive you away </I>completely<I>, |
| just a little, just to a safer distance. Please. In thirty long |
| years the only time I haven't felt worthless was when we were |
| together</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But when I looked up again the butterfly was gone and so was she, |
| taking all baggage with her. She carried doubt, and guilt for having |
| led me on. She left believing that our incompatibility was no one's |
| fault, that she'd tried as hard as she could, even that <I>I</I> had |
| under the tragic weight of all my issues. She left, and maybe she |
| didn't even blame me, and I never even knew who'd made that final |
| decision.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was good at what I did. I was so damned good, I did it without |
| even meaning to.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>My God! Did you hear that!?</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan James bounced around the drum like a pronking wildebeest in the |
| half-gravity. I could see the whites of her eyes from ninety degrees |
| away. "Check your feeds! Check your feeds! <I>The pens!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I checked. One scrambler afloat; the other still jammed into its |
| corner.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James landed at my side with a two-footed thump, wobbling for |
| balance. "Turn the sound up!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The hissing of the air conditioners. The clank of distant machinery |
| echoing along the spine; <I>Theseus</I>' usual intestinal rumblings. |
| Nothing else.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Okay, they're not doing it now." James brought up a |
| splitscreen window and threw it into reverse. "<I>There</I>," |
| she pronounced, replaying the record with the audio cranked and |
| filtered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In the right side of the window, the floating scrambler had drifted |
| so that the tip of one outstretched arm brushed against the wall that |
| adjoined the other pen. In the left side, the huddled scrambler |
| remained unmoving.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought I heard something. Just for an instant: the brief buzz of |
| an insect, perhaps, if the nearest insect hadn't been five trillion |
| kilometers away. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Replay that. Slow it down."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A buzz, definitely. A vibration.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Way</I> down."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A click train, squirted from a dolphin's forehead. Farting lips.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, let <I>me</I>." James bulled into Cunningham's |
| headspace and yanked the slider to the left.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Tick tick...tick...tick tick tick...tick...tick tick tick...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Dopplered down near absolute zero, it went on for almost a minute. |
| Total elapsed real time was about half a second.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham zoomed the splitscreen. The huddled scrambler had |
| remained motionless, except for the rippling of its cuticle and the |
| undulation of its free arms. But before I'd only seen eight arms—and |
| now I could make out the bony spur of a ninth peeking from behind the |
| central mass. A ninth arm, curled up and hidden from view, <I>tick |
| tick ticking</I> while another creature casually leaned against the |
| other side of the wall...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now, there was nothing. The floating scrambler had drifted aimlessly |
| back to the center of its enclosure.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James's eyes shone. "We've got to check the rest of—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But <I>Theseus</I> had been watching, and was way ahead of us. It |
| had already searched the archives and served up the results: three |
| similar exchanges over two days, ranging in duration from a tenth of |
| a second to almost two.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're talking," James said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham shrugged, a forgotten cigarette burning down between his |
| fingers. "So do a lot of things. And at <I>that</I> rate of |
| exchange they're not exactly doing calculus. You could get as much |
| information out of a dancing honeybee."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's nonsense and you know it, Robert."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What I <I>know</I> is that—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Honeybees don't deliberately hide what they're saying. |
| Honeybees don't develop whole new modes of communication configured |
| specifically to confound observers. That's flexible, Robert. That's |
| <I>intelligent</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And what if it is, hmm? Forget for a moment the inconvenient |
| fact that these things don't even have <I>brains</I>. I really don't |
| think you've thought this through."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Of course I have."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Indeed? Then what are you so happy about? Don't you know what |
| this means?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sudden prickling on the back of my neck. I looked around; I looked |
| <I>up</I>. Jukka Sarasti had appeared in the center of the drum, |
| eyes gleaming, teeth bared, watching us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham followed my gaze, and nodded. "I'd wager <I>it</I> |
| does..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was no way to learn what they'd whispered across that wall. We |
| could recover the audio easily enough, parse every tick and tap |
| they'd exchanged, but you can't decipher a code without some idea of |
| <I>content.</I> We had patterns of sound that could have meant |
| anything. We had creatures whose grammar and syntax—if their |
| mode of communication even contained such attributes—were |
| unknown and perhaps unknowable. We had creatures smart enough to |
| talk, and smart enough to hide that fact. No matter how much we |
| wanted to learn, they were obviously unwilling to teach us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not without—how had I put it?— <I>negative reinforcement</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was Jukka Sarasti who made the decision. We did it on his orders, |
| as we did everything else. But after the word had come down— |
| after Sarasti had disappeared in the night and Bates had retreated |
| down the spine and Robert Cunningham had returned to his studies at |
| the back of the drum—I was the one Susan James was left with. |
| The first to speak the vile thought aloud, the official witness to |
| posterity. I was the one she looked at, and looked away from, her |
| surfaces hard and refractory.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And then she started.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This is how you break down the wall:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Start with two beings. They can be human if you like, but that's |
| hardly a prerequisite. All that matters is that they know how to |
| talk among themselves.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Separate them. Let them see each other, let them speak. Perhaps a |
| window between their cages. Perhaps an audio feed. Let them |
| practice the art of conversation in their own chosen way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Hurt them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It may take a while to figure out how. Some may shrink from fire, |
| others from toxic gas or liquid. Some creatures may be invulnerable |
| to blowtorches and grenades, but shriek in terror at the threat of |
| ultrasonic sound. You have to experiment; and when you discover just |
| the right stimulus, the optimum balance between <I>pain</I> and |
| <I>injury</I>, you must inflict it without the remorse. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You leave them an escape hatch, of course. That's the very point of |
| the exercise: give one of your subjects the <I>means</I> to end the |
| pain, but give the other the <I>information</I> required to use it. |
| To one you might present a single shape, while showing the other a |
| whole selection. The pain will stop when the being with the menu |
| chooses the item its partner has seen. So let the games begin. |
| Watch your subjects squirm. If—<I>when</I>—they trip the |
| off switch, you'll know at least some of the information they |
| exchanged; and if you record everything that passed between them, |
| you'll start to get some idea of how they exchanged it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| When they solve one puzzle, give them a new one. Mix things up. |
| Switch their roles. See how they do at circles versus squares. Try |
| them out on factorials and Fibonnaccis. Continue until Rosetta Stone |
| results.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, |
| and keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the |
| screams.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan James—congenital optimist, high priestess of the Church |
| of the Healing Word, was best qualified to design and execute the |
| protocols. Now, at her command, the scramblers writhed. They pulled |
| themselves around their cages in elliptical loops, desperately |
| seeking any small corner free of stimulus. James had piped the feed |
| into ConSensus, although there was no mission-critical reason for |
| <I>Theseus</I>' whole crew to bear witness to the interrogation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Let them block it at their ends," she said quietly, "If |
| they want to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For all his reluctance to accept that these were <I>beings</I>, |
| intelligent and aware, Cunningham had named the prisoners. <I>Stretch</I> |
| tended to float spread-eagled; <I>Clench </I>was the balled-up |
| corner-hugger. Susan, playing her own part in this perverse |
| role-reversal, had simply numbered them One and Two. It wasn't that |
| Cunningham's choices were too cheesy for her to stomach, or that she |
| objected to slave names on principle. She'd just fallen back on the |
| oldest trick in the Torturer's Handbook, the one that lets you go |
| home to your family after work, and play with your children, and |
| sleep at night: <I>never</I> humanize your victims.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It shouldn't have been such an issue when dealing with |
| methane-breathing medusae. I guess every little bit helped.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Biotelemetry danced across the headspace beside each alien, luminous |
| annotations shuddering through thin air. I had no idea what |
| constituted normal readings for these creatures, but I couldn't |
| imagine those jagged spikes passing for anything but bad news. The |
| creatures themselves seethed subtly with fine mosaics in blue and |
| gray, fluid patterns rippling across their cuticles. Perhaps it was |
| a reflexive reaction to the microwaves; for all we knew it was a |
| mating display.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| More likely they were screaming.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James killed the microwaves. In the left-hand enclosure, a yellow |
| square dimmed; in the right, an identical icon nested among others |
| had never lit. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The pigment flowed faster in the wake of the onslaught; the arms |
| slowed but didn't stop. They swept back and forth like listless, |
| skeletal eels.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Baseline exposure. Five seconds, two hundred fifty Watts." |
| She spoke for the record. Another affectation; <I>Theseus</I> |
| recorded every breath on board, every trickle of current to five |
| decimal places.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Repeat."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The icon lit up. More tile patterns, flash-flooding across alien |
| skin. But this time, neither alien moved from where it was. Their |
| arms continued to squirm slightly, a torqued trembling variation on |
| the undulation they effected at rest. The telemetry was as harsh as |
| ever, though.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>They learned helplessness fast enough</I>, I reflected.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I glanced at Susan. "Are you going to do this all yourself?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her eyes were bright and wet as she killed the current. Clench's |
| icon dimmed. Stretch's remained dormant.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I cleared my throat. "I mean—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Who else is going to do this, Siri? Jukka? You?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The rest of the Gang. Sascha could—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sascha?" She stared at me. "Siri, I <I>created |
| </I>them. Do you think I did that so I could <I>hide</I> behind them |
| when—so I could force them to do things like <I>this</I>?" |
| She shook her head. "I'm not bringing them out. Not for this. |
| I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She turned away from me. There were drugs she could have taken, |
| neuroinhibitors to wash away the guilt, short-circuit it right down |
| in the molecules. Sarasti had offered them up as if he were tempting |
| some solitary messiah in the desert. James had refused him, and |
| would not say why.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Repeat," she said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The current flickered on, then off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Repeat," she said again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not a twitch.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I pointed. "I see it," she said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Clench had pressed the tip of one arm against the touchpad. The icon |
| there glowed like a candle flame.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Six and a half minutes later they'd graduated from yellow squares to |
| time-lapsed four-dimensional polyhedrons. It took them as long to |
| distinguish between two twenty-six-faceted shifting solids—differing |
| by one facet in a single frame—as it took them to tell the |
| difference between a yellow square and a red triangle. Intricate |
| patterns played across their surfaces the whole time, dynamic |
| needlepoint mosaics flickering almost too fast to see.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Fuck</I>," James whispered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Could be splinter skills." Cunningham had joined us in |
| ConSensus, although his body remained halfway around BioMed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Splinter skills," she repeated dully.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Savantism. Hyperperformance at one kind of calculation doesn't |
| necessarily connote high intelligence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know what splinter skills are, Robert. I just think you're |
| wrong."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Prove it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So she gave up on geometry and told the scramblers that one plus one |
| equaled two. Evidently they knew that already: ten minutes later |
| they were predicting ten-digit prime numbers on demand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She showed them a sequence of two-dimensional shapes; they picked the |
| next one in the series from a menu of subtly-different alternatives. |
| She denied them multiple choice, showed them the beginning of a whole |
| new sequence and taught them to draw on the touch-sensitive interface |
| with the tips of their arms. They finished that series in precise |
| freehand, rendered a chain of logical descendants ending with a |
| figure that led inexorably back to the starting point.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "These aren't <I>drones</I>." James's voice caught in her |
| throat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "This is all just crunching," Cunningham said. "Millions |
| of computer programs do it without ever waking up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're <I>intelligent</I>, Robert. They're smarter than us. |
| Maybe they're smarter than <I>Jukka</I>. And we're—why can't |
| you just <I>admit</I> it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could see it all over her: <I>Isaac </I>would have admitted it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Because they don't have the circuitry," Cunningham |
| insisted. "How could—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>I don't know how!</I>" she cried. "That's <I>your</I> |
| job! All <I>I</I> know is that I'm torturing beings that can think |
| rings around us..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not for much longer, at least. Once you figure out the |
| language—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "Robert, I haven't a <I>clue</I> about the |
| language. We've been at it for—for hours, haven't we? The |
| Gang's all here, language databases four thousand years thick, all |
| the latest linguistic algorithms. And we know exactly what they're |
| saying, we're watching every possible way they could be <I>saying</I> |
| it. Right down to the Angstrom."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Precisely. So—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I've got <I>nothing</I>. I know they're talking through |
| pigment mosaics. There might even be something in the way they move |
| those bristles. But I can't find the <I>pattern</I>, I can't even |
| follow how they <I>count</I>, much less tell them I'm...sorry..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody spoke for a while. Bates watched us from the galley on our |
| ceiling, but made no attempt to join the proceedings. On ConSensus |
| the reprieved scramblers floated in their cages like multiarmed |
| martyrs.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well," Cunningham said at last, "since this seems to |
| be the day for bad news, here's mine. They're dying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James put her face in her hand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not your interrogation, for whatever that's worth," |
| the biologist continued. "As far as I can determine, some of |
| their metabolic pathways are just <I>missing</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Obviously you just haven't found them yet." That was |
| Bates, speaking up from across the drum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>No</I>," Cunningham said, slowly and distinctly, |
| "<I>obviously</I> those parts aren't available to the organism. |
| Because they're falling apart pretty much the same way you'd expect |
| one of <I>us</I> to, if—if all the mitotic spindles in our |
| cells just <I>vanished</I> out of the cytoplasm, for example. As far |
| as I can tell they started deteriorating the moment we took them off |
| <I>Rorschach</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan looked up. "Are you saying they left part of their |
| biochemistry <I>behind</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Some essential nutrient?" Bates suggested. "They're |
| not eating—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes to the linguist. No to the major." Cunningham fell |
| silent; I glanced across the drum to see him sucking on a cigarette. |
| "I think a lot of the cellular processes in these things are |
| mediated externally. I think the reason I can't find any genes in my |
| biopsies is because they don't <I>have</I> any."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what do they have instead?" Bates asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Turing morphogens."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Blank looks, subtitling looks. Cunningham explained anyway: "A |
| lot of biology doesn't use genes. Sunflowers look the way they do |
| because of purely physical buckling stress. You get Fibonacci |
| sequences and Golden ratios everywhere in nature, and there's no gene |
| that codes for them; it's all just mechanical interactions. Take a |
| developing embryo—the genes say <I>start growing</I> or <I>stop |
| growing</I>, but the number of digits and vertebrae result from the |
| mechanics of cells bumping against other cells. Those mitotic |
| spindles I mentioned? Absolutely essential for replication in every |
| eukaryotic cell, and they accrete like crystals without any genetic |
| involvement. You'd be surprised how much of life is like that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But you still need <I>genes</I>," Bates protested, walking |
| around to join us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Genes just establish the starting conditions to enable the |
| process. The structure that proliferates afterwards doesn't need |
| specific instructions. It's classic emergent complexity. We've |
| known about it for over a century." Another drag on the stick. |
| "Or even longer. Darwin cited honeycomb way back in the |
| eighteen hundreds."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Honeycomb," Bates repeated.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Perfect hexagonal tubes in a packed array. Bees are hardwired |
| to lay them down, but how does an insect know enough geometry to lay |
| down a precise hexagon? It doesn't. It's programmed to chew up wax |
| and spit it out while turning on its axis, and that generates a |
| circle. Put a bunch of bees on the same surface, chewing |
| side-by-side, and the circles abut against each other—deform |
| each other into hexagons, which just happen to be more efficient for |
| close packing anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates pounced: "But the <I>bees</I> are programmed. |
| <I>Genetically</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You misunderstand. Scramblers are the <I>honeycomb</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach </I>is the bees," James murmured.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham nodded. "<I>Rorschach</I> is the bees. And I don't |
| think <I>Rorschach</I>'s magnetic fields are counterintrusion |
| mechanisms at all. I think they're part of the life-support system. |
| I think they mediate and regulate a good chunk of scrambler |
| metabolism. What we've got back in the hold is a couple of creatures |
| dragged out of their element and holding their breath. And they |
| can't hold it forever."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How long?" James asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How should I know? If I'm right, I'm not even dealing with |
| complete organisms here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Guess," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He shrugged. "A few days. Maybe." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"That |
| which does not kill us, makes us stranger."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Trevor |
| Goodchild</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You still don't vote," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We would not be releasing the prisoners. Too risky. Out here in the |
| endless wastelands of the Oort there was no room for <I>live and let |
| live</I>. Never mind what the Other <I>has</I> done, or what it |
| <I>hasn't</I>: think of what it <I>could</I> do, if it were just a |
| little stronger. Think of what it <I>might</I> have done, if we'd |
| arrived as late as we were supposed to. You look at <I>Rorschach</I> |
| and perhaps you see an embryo or a developing child, alien beyond |
| comprehension perhaps but not <I>guilty</I>, not by default. But |
| what if those are the wrong eyes? What if you should be seeing an |
| omnipotent murdering God, a planet-killer, not yet finished? |
| Vulnerable only now, and for a little longer?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was no vampire opacity to that logic, no multidimensional black |
| boxes for humans to shrug at and throw up their hands. There was no |
| excuse for the failure to find fault with Sarasti's reasoning, beyond |
| the fact that his reasoning was without fault. That made it worse. |
| The others, I knew, would rather have had to take something on faith. |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Sarasti had an alternative to capture-release, one he evidently |
| considered much safer. It took an act of faith to accept <I>that</I> |
| reasoning, at least; by any sane measure it verged on suicide. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now <I>Theseus</I> gave birth by Caesarian. These progeny were far |
| too massive to fit through the canal at the end of the spine. The |
| ship shat them as if constipated, directly into the hold: great |
| monstrous things, bristling with muzzles and antennae. Each stood |
| three or four times my height, a pair of massive rust-colored cubes, |
| every surface infested with topography. Armor plating would hide |
| most of it prior to deployment, of course. Ribbons of piping and |
| conduit, ammunition reservoirs and shark-toothed rows of radiator |
| fins— all to disappear beneath smooth reflective shielding. |
| Only a few island landmarks would rise above that surface: comm |
| ports, thrust nozzles, targeting arrays. And gun ports, of course. |
| These things spat fire and brimstone from a half-dozen mouths apiece.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But for the time being they were just giant mechanical fetuses, |
| half-extruded, their planes and angles a high-contrast jigsaw of |
| light and shadow in the harsh white glow of the hold's floodlamps.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned from the port. "That's got to take our substrate |
| stockpiles down a bit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shielding the carapace was worse." Bates monitored |
| construction through a dedicated flatscreen built right into the Fab |
| bulkhead. Practicing, perhaps; we'd be losing our inlays as soon as |
| the orbit changed. "We're tapping out, though. Might have to |
| grab one of the local rocks before long."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Huh." I looked back into the hold. "You think |
| they're necessary?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Doesn't matter what I think. You're a bright guy, Siri. Why |
| can't you figure that out?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It matters to me. That means it matters to Earth."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Which might mean something</I>,<I> if Earth was calling the shots. |
| </I> Some subtext was legible no matter <I>how</I> deep in the system |
| you were. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tacked to port: "How about Sarasti and the Captain, then? |
| Any thoughts?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're usually a bit more subtle."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That much was true. "It's just, you know Susan was the one that |
| caught Stretch and Clench tapping back and forth, right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates winced at the names. "So?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, some might think it odd that <I>Theseus</I> wouldn't have |
| seen it first. Since quantum computers are supposed to be so |
| proficient at pattern-matching."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sarasti took the quantum modules offline. The onboard's been |
| running in classical mode since before we even made orbit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Why</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Noisy environment. Too much risk of decoherence. Quantum |
| computers are finicky things."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Surely the onboard's shielded. <I>Theseus</I> is shielded."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates nodded. "As much as feasible. But perfect shielding is |
| perfect blindness, and this is not the kind of neighborhood where you |
| want to keep your eyes closed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Actually, it was. But I took her point.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I took her other point, too, the one she didn't speak aloud: <I>And |
| you missed it. Something sitting right there in ConSensus for |
| anyone to see. Top-of-the-line synthesist like you.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sarasti knows what he's doing, I guess," I admitted, |
| endlessly aware that he might be listening. "He hasn't been |
| wrong yet, as far as we know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As far as we <I>can </I>know," Bates said. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>If you could second-guess a vampire, you wouldn't need a |
| vampire</I>," I remembered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She smiled faintly. "Isaac was a good man. You can't always |
| believe the PR, though."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't buy it?" I asked, but she was already thinking |
| she'd said too much. I threw out a hook baited with just the right |
| mix of skepticism and deference: "Sarasti <I>did</I> know where |
| those scramblers would be. Nailed it almost the meter, out of that |
| whole maze."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I suppose that might have taken some kind of superhuman logic," |
| she admitted, thinking I was so fucking dumb she couldn't believe it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?" I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shrugged. "Or maybe he just realized that since <I>Rorschach</I> |
| was growing its own crew, we'd run into more every time we went in. |
| No matter <I>where</I> we landed."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| ConSensus bleeped into my silence. "Orbital maneuvers starting |
| in five," Sarasti announced. "Inlays and wireless |
| prosthetics offline in ninety. That's all." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates shut down the display. "I'm going to ride this out in the |
| bridge. Illusion of control and all that. You?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My tent, I think."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She nodded, and braced to jump, and hesitated.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "By the way," she told me, "yes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sorry?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You asked if I thought the emplacements were necessary. Right |
| now I think we need all the protection we can get."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you think that <I>Rorschach</I> might—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey, it <I>already</I> killed me once. "</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She wasn't talking about radiation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded carefully. "That must have been…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like nothing at all. You couldn't possibly imagine." |
| Bates took a breath and let it out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe you don't have to," she added, and sailed away up |
| the spine.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham and the Gang in BioMed, thirty degrees of arc between |
| them. Each poked their captives in their own way. Susan James |
| stabbed indifferently at a keypad painted across her desktop. |
| Windows to either side looked in on Stretch and Clench.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cookie-cutter shapes scrolled across the desk as James typed: |
| circles, triskelions, a quartet of parallel lines. Some of them |
| pulsed like abstract little hearts. In his distant pen, Stretch |
| reached out one fraying tentacle and tapped something in turn.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Any progress?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She sighed and shook her head. "I've given up trying to |
| understand their language. I'm settling for a pidgin." She |
| tapped an icon. Clench vanished from his window; a hieroglyphic |
| flowchart sprang up in his place. Half the symbols wriggled or |
| pulsed, endlessly repetitive, a riot of dancing doodles. Others just |
| sat there. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Iconic base." James waved vaguely at the display. |
| "Subject-Verb phrases render as animated versions of noun icons. |
| They're radially symmetrical, so I array modifiers in a circular |
| pattern around the central subject. Maybe that comes naturally to |
| them."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A new circle of glyphs appeared beneath James's—Stretch's |
| reply, presumably. But something in the system didn't like what it |
| saw. Icons flared in a separate window: a luminous counter flashed |
| 500 Watts, and held steady. On the screen, Stretch writhed. It |
| reached out with squirming backbone-arms and stabbed repeatedly at |
| its touchpad.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James looked away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| New glyphs appeared. 500 Watts retreated to zero. Stretch returned |
| to its holding pattern; the spikes and jags of its telemetry |
| smoothed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James let out her breath. "What happened?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wrong answer." She tapped into Stretch's feed, showed me |
| the display that had tripped it up. A pyramid, a star, simplified |
| representations of a scrambler and of <I>Rorschach</I> rotated on the |
| board. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was stupid, it was just a—a warm-up exercise, really. |
| I asked it to name the objects in the window." She laughed |
| softly and without humor. "That's the thing about <I>functional</I> |
| languages, you know. If you can't point at it, you can't talk about |
| it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And what did it say?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She pointed at Stretch's first spiral: "Polyhedron star |
| <I>Rorschach</I> are present."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It missed the scrambler."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Got it right the second time. Still, stupid mistake for |
| something that can think rings around a vampire, isn't it?" |
| Susan swallowed. "I guess even scramblers slip up when they're |
| dying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't know what to say. Behind me, barely audible, Cunningham |
| muttered some two-stroke mantra to himself in an endless loop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jukka says—" Susan stopped, began again: "You |
| know that <I>blindsight</I> we get sometimes, in <I>Rorschach</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded, and wondered what Jukka had said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Apparently the same thing can happen to the other senses too," |
| she told me. "You can have blind<I>touch</I>, and blind<I>smell</I>, |
| and blind<I>hearing</I>..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That would be deafness."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "But it isn't really, is it? Any more than |
| blind<I>sight</I> is really blindness. <I>Something </I>in your head |
| is still taking it all in. Something in the brain is still seeing, |
| and hearing, even if you're not—aware of it. Unless someone |
| forces you to <I>guess</I>, or there's some threat. You just get a |
| really strong feeling you should move out of the way, and five |
| seconds later a bus drives over the spot you were standing. You <I>knew</I> |
| it was coming, somehow. You just don't know <I>how</I> you knew."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's wild," I agreed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "These scramblers—they <I>know</I> the answers, Siri. |
| They're intelligent, we <I>know</I> they are. But it's almost as |
| though <I>they</I> don't know they know, unless you hurt them. As if |
| they've got blindsight spread over every sense."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I tried to imagine it: life without sensation, without any active |
| awareness of one's environment. I tried to imagine existing like |
| that without going mad. "Do you think that's possible?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know. It's just a—a metaphor, I guess." |
| She didn't believe that. Or she didn't know. Or she didn't want me |
| to know. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I should have been able to tell. She should have been <I>clear</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "At first I just thought they were resisting," she said, |
| "but why <I>would</I> they?" She turned bright, begging |
| eyes on me, pleading for an answer. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't have one. I didn't have a clue. I turned away from Susan |
| James, only to find myself facing Robert Cunningham: Cunningham the |
| mutterer, fingers tapping against tabletop interfaces, inner eyes |
| blinded, vision limited now to the pictures ConSensus sketched in |
| airspace or threw against flat surfaces for everyone to see. His |
| face remained as empty of feeling as it had ever been; the rest of |
| his body twitched like a bug in a spiderweb.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He might as well have been. We all might. <I>Rorschach</I> loomed |
| barely nine kilometers away now, so near it might have eclipsed Ben |
| itself if I'd been brave enough to look outside. We had closed to |
| this insane proximity and <I>parked.</I> Out there, <I>Rorschach</I> |
| grew like a live thing. <I>In</I> there, live things grew, budded |
| like jellyfish from some demonic mechanical substrate. Those lethal, |
| vacant corridors we'd crept along, frightened of the shadows planted |
| in our heads—they were probably filling with scramblers right |
| now. All those hundreds of kilometers of twisted tunnels and |
| passages and chambers. Filling with an army.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This was Sarasti's safer alternative. This was the path we'd |
| followed because it would have been <I>too dangerous</I> to release |
| the prisoners. We were so deep inside the bow shock that we'd had |
| to shut down our internal augments; while <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| magnetosphere was orders of magnitude weaker here than within the |
| structure itself, who knew if the alien might find us too tempting a |
| target—or too great a threat—at this range? Who knew |
| when it might choose to plunge some invisible spike through <I>Theseus</I>'s |
| heart?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Any pulse that could penetrate the ship's shielding would doubtless |
| fry <I>Theseus</I>'s nervous system as well as the wiring in our |
| heads. I supposed that five people in a dead ship would have a |
| marginally greater chance of survival if their brains weren't |
| sparking in the bargain, but I doubted that such a difference would |
| <I>make</I> much difference. Sarasti had obviously figured the odds |
| differently. He'd even shut down the antiEuclidean pump in his own |
| head, resorted to manual injections to keep <I>himself</I> from |
| short-circuiting.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Stretch and Clench were even closer to <I>Rorschach</I> than we were. |
| Cunningham's lab had been kicked free of the ship; it floated now |
| just a few kilometers from the artefact's outermost spires, deep |
| within the folds of its magnetic field. If the scramblers needed |
| radioactive magnetite to function, this was the most they were going |
| to get: a taste of the fields, but not of freedom. The lab's |
| shielding was being dynamically fine-tuned to balance medical |
| necessity against tactical risk, as best the data allowed. The |
| structure floated in the watchful crosshairs of our newborn gun |
| emplacements, strategically positioned to either side. Those |
| emplacements could destroy the hab in an instant. They could |
| probably destroy anything approaching it as well.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They couldn't destroy <I>Rorschach</I>, of course. Maybe nothing |
| could.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Covert to invulnerable. As far as we knew that hadn't happened yet. |
| Presumably <I>Theseus</I> could still do something about the artefact |
| accreting off our bow, assuming we could decide which thing to do. |
| Sarasti wasn't talking. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time |
| any of us had even <I>seen</I> the vampire in the flesh. For several |
| shifts now he had confined himself to his tent, speaking only through |
| ConSensus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Everyone was on edge, and the transient had gone quiet.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham muttered to himself, stabbed at unfamiliar controls with |
| unpracticed fingers, cursed his own clumsiness. Stimulus and |
| response flowed through lasers across six kilometers of ionized |
| vacuum. The ever-present nicotine stick hung from one corner of his |
| mouth for want of a free hand. Every now and then flecks of ash |
| broke free and drifted obliquely towards the ventilators.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He spoke before I could. "It's all in ConSensus." When I |
| didn't leave he relented, but wouldn't look at me: "Magnetite |
| flecks lined up as soon as they got past the wavefront, more or less. |
| Membranes started to fix themselves. They're not failing as fast. |
| But it's <I>Rorschach</I>'s <I>internal</I> environment that will be |
| optimized for scrambler metabolism. Out here, I think the most we |
| can do is slow the rate of dying."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's something, at least."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham grunted. "Some of the pieces are coming together. |
| Others—their nerves are frayed, for no good reason. Literally. |
| Signal leakage along the cables."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Because of their deterioration?" I guessed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And I can't get the Arrhenius equation to balance, there's all |
| this nonlinearity at low temperatures. The preexponential value's |
| completely fucked up. It's almost as though temperature doesn't |
| <I>matter</I>, and —<I>shit</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Some critical value had exceeded a confidence limit on one of his |
| displays. He glanced up the drum, raised his voice: "Need |
| another biopsy, Susan. Anywhere central."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What—oh. Just a second." She shook her head and |
| tapped off a brief spiral of icons, as listless as the captives she |
| commanded. On one of Cunningham's windows Stretch viewed her input |
| with its marvelous sighted skin. It floated unresponsive for a |
| moment. Then it folded back the arms facing one wall, opening a |
| clear path for Cunningham's teleops. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He called two of them from their burrows like prehensile serpents. |
| The first wielded a clinical core-sampler; the second wielded the |
| threat of violence in case of foolish resistance. It was hardly |
| necessary. Blindsighted or not, scramblers were fast learners. |
| Stretch exposed its belly like a victim resigned to imminent rape. |
| Cunningham fumbled; the teleops bumped together, briefly entangled. |
| He cursed and tried again, every move shouting frustration. His |
| extended phenotype had been amputated; once the very ghost in the |
| machine, now he was just another guy punching buttons, and— |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and suddenly, something <I>clicked</I>. Cunningham's facades |
| swirled to translucency before my eyes. Suddenly, I could almost |
| <I>imagine</I> him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He got it right the second time. The tip of his machine shot out |
| like a striking snake and darted back again, almost too fast to see. |
| Waves of color flushed from Stretch's injury like ripples chased |
| across still water by a falling stone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham must have thought he saw something in my face. "It |
| helps if you try not to think of them as people," he said. And |
| for the very first time I could read the subtext, as clear and sharp |
| as broken glass: |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Of course, you don't think of </I>anyone<I> that way...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham didn't like to be <I>played</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No one does. But most people don't think that's what I'm doing. |
| They don't know how much their bodies betray when they close their |
| mouths. When they speak aloud, it's because they want to confide; |
| when they don't, they think they're keeping their opinions to |
| themselves. I watch them so closely, customize each word so that no |
| system ever feels <I>used</I>— and yet for some reason, that |
| didn't work with Robert Cunningham.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I think I was modeling the wrong system.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you are a synthesist. You deal in the behavior of systems at |
| their surfaces, infer the machinery <I>beneath</I> from its |
| reflections <I>above</I>. That is the secret of your success: you |
| understand the system by understanding the boundaries that contain |
| it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now imagine you encounter someone who has ripped a hole in those |
| boundaries and bled beyond them.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Robert Cunningham's flesh could not contain him. His duties pulled |
| him beyond the meat sack; here in the Oort, his topology rambled all |
| over the ship. That was true of all of us, to some extent; Bates and |
| her drones, Sarasti and his limbic link—even the ConSensus |
| inlays in our heads <I>diffused</I> us a bit, spread us just slightly |
| beyond the confines of our own bodies. But Bates only ran her |
| drones; she never <I>inhabited</I> them. The Gang of Four may have |
| run multiple systems on a single motherboard, but each had its own |
| distinct topology and they only surfaced one at a time. And Sarasti—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Well, Sarasti was a whole different story, as it turned out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham didn't just operate his remotes; he <I>escaped</I> into |
| them, wore them like a secret identity to hide the feeble Human |
| baseline within. He had sacrificed half of his neocortex for the |
| chance to see x-rays and taste the shapes hiding in cell membranes, |
| he had butchered one body to become a fleeting tenant of many. |
| Pieces of him hid in the sensors and manipulators that lined the |
| scrambler's cages; I might have gleaned vital cues from every piece |
| of equipment in the subdrum if I'd ever thought to look. Cunningham |
| was a topological jigsaw like everyone else, but half his pieces were |
| hidden in machinery. My model was incomplete.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I don't think he ever aspired to such a state. Looking back, I see |
| radiant self-loathing on every remembered surface. But there in the |
| waning years of the twenty-first century, the only alternative he |
| could see was the life of a parasite. Cunningham merely chose the |
| lesser evil. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now, even that was denied him. Sarasti's orders had severed him |
| from his own sensorium. He no longer <I>felt</I> the data in his |
| gut; he had to <I>interpret</I> it, step by laborious step, through |
| screens and graphs that reduced perception to flat empty shorthand. |
| Here was a system traumatized by multiple amputations. Here was a |
| system with its eyes and ears and tongue cut out, forced to stumble |
| and feel its way around things it had once <I>inhabited</I>, right |
| down in the bone. Suddenly there was nowhere else to hide, and all |
| those far-flung pieces of Robert Cunningham tumbled back into his |
| flesh where I could see them at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It had been my mistake, all along. I'd been so focused on modelling |
| other systems that I'd forgotten about the one doing the modelling. |
| Bad eyes are only one bane of clear vision: bad assumptions can be |
| just as blinding, and it wasn't enough to imagine I was Robert |
| Cunningham.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I had to imagine I was Siri Keeton as well.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Of course, that only raises another question. If my guess about |
| Cunningham was right, why did my tricks work on Isaac Szpindel? He |
| was every bit as discontinuous as his replacement.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't think about it much at the time. Szpindel was gone but the |
| thing that had killed him was still there, hanging right off the bow, |
| a vast swelling enigma that might choose to squash us at any instant. |
| I was more than a little preoccupied.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now, though—far too late to do anything about it—I think |
| I might know the answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe my tricks didn't work on Isaac either, not really. Maybe he |
| saw through my manipulations as easily as Cunningham did. But maybe |
| he just didn't care. Maybe I could read him because he <I>let</I> |
| me. Which would mean— I can't find another explanation that |
| fits— that he just <I>liked</I> me, regardless.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I think that might have made him a friend.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"If |
| I can but make the words awake the feeling"</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Ian |
| Anderson, <I>Stand Up</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Night shift. Not a creature was stirring.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not in <I>Theseus</I>, anyway. The Gang hid in their tent. The |
| transient lurked weightless and silent below the surface. Bates was |
| in the bridge­— she more or less lived up there now, |
| vigilant and conscientious, nested in camera angles and tactical |
| overlays. There was nowhere she could turn without seeing some |
| aspect of the cipher off our starboard bow. She did what good she |
| could, for the good it would do.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The drum turned quietly, lights dimmed in deference to a diel cycle |
| that a hundred years of tweaks and retrofits hadn't been able to weed |
| from the genes. I sat alone in the galley, squinting from the inside |
| of a system whose outlines grew increasingly hazy, trying to compile |
| my latest—how had Isaac put it?— <I>postcard to |
| posterity</I>. Cunningham worked upside-down on the other side of |
| the world.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Except Cunningham wasn't working. He hadn't even moved for at least |
| four minutes. I'd assumed he was reciting the Kaddish for |
| Szpindel—ConSensus said he'd be doing it twice daily for the |
| next year, if we lived that long—but now, leaning to see around |
| the spinal bundles in the core, I could read his surfaces as clearly |
| as if I'd been sitting beside him. He wasn't bored, or distracted, |
| or even deep in thought. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Robert Cunningham was petrified.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I stood and paced the drum. Ceiling turned into wall; wall into |
| floor. I was close enough to hear his incessant soft muttering, a |
| single indistinct syllable repeated over and over; then I was close |
| enough to hear what he was saying—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>fuck fuck fuck fuck...</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and still Cunningham didn't move, although I'd made no attempt |
| to mask my approach.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Finally, when I was almost at his shoulder, he fell silent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're blind," he said without turning. "Did you |
| know that?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I didn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You. Me. Everyone." He interlocked his fingers and |
| <I>clenched</I> as if in prayer, hard enough to whiten the knuckles. |
| Only then did I notice: no cigarette. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<SPAN LANG="en-CA">Vision's mostly a lie anyway," he |
| continued. "We don't really see anything except a few hi-res |
| degrees where the eye focuses. Everything else is just peripheral |
| blur, just— light and motion. Motion draws the focus. And |
| your eyes <I>jiggle</I> all the time, did you know that, Keeton? |
| </SPAN><I>Saccades</I>, they're called<SPAN LANG="en-CA">. </SPAN>Blurs |
| the image, the movement's way too fast for the brain to integrate so |
| your eye just—shuts down between pauses. It only grabs these |
| isolated freeze-frames, but your brain edits out the blanks and |
| stitches an — an illusion of continuity into your head."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He turned to face me. "And you know what's <I>really</I> |
| amazing? If something only moves during the gaps, your brain |
| just—ignores it. It's invisible."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I glanced at his workspace. The usual splitscreen glowed to one |
| side—realtime images of the scramblers in their pens—but |
| Histology, ten thousand times larger than life, took center stage. |
| The paradoxical neural architecture of <I>Stretch & Clench</I> |
| glistened on the main window, flensed and labeled and overlaid by |
| circuit diagrams a dozen layers thick. A dense, annotated forest of |
| alien trunks and brambles. It looked a little like <I>Rorschach</I> |
| itself. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't parse any of it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you listening, Keeton? Do you know what I'm saying?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You've figured out why I couldn't—you're saying these |
| things can somehow tell when our eyes are offline, and..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't finish. It just didn't seem possible.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham shook his head. Something that sounded disturbingly like |
| a giggle escaped his mouth. "I'm saying these things can see |
| your nerves firing from across the room, and integrate that into a |
| crypsis strategy, and then send motor commands to <I>act</I> on that |
| strategy, and then send other commands to <I>stop</I> the motion |
| before your eyes come back online. All in the time it would take a |
| mammalian nerve impulse to make it halfway from your shoulder to your |
| elbow. These things are <I>fast</I>, Keeton. Way faster than we |
| could have guessed even from that high-speed whisper line they were |
| using. They're bloody <I>superconductors</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It took a conscious effort to keep from frowning. "Is that even |
| possible?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Every nerve impulse generates an electromagnetic field. That |
| makes it detectable."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But <I>Rorschach</I>'s EM fields are so—I mean, reading |
| the firing of a single optic nerve through all that interference—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's not <I>interference</I>. The fields are <I>part</I> of |
| them, remember? That's probably how they <I>do </I>it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So they couldn't do that here."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're not <I>listening</I>. The trap you set wouldn't have |
| caught anything like that, not unless it <I>wanted</I> to be caught. |
| We didn't grab specimens at all. We grabbed <I>spies</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Stretch and Clench floated in splitscreen before us, arms swaying |
| like undulating backbones. Cryptic patterns played slowly across |
| their cuticles.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Supposing it's just— instinct," I suggested. |
| "Flounders hide against their background pretty well, but they |
| don't <I>think</I> about it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Where are they going to get that instinct <I>from</I>, Keeton? |
| How is it going to evolve? Saccades are an accidental glitch in |
| mammalian vision. Where would scramblers have encountered them |
| before now?" Cunningham shook his head. "That thing, that |
| thing Amanda's robot fried— it developed that strategy on its |
| own, <I>on the spot</I>. It <I>improvised</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The word <I>intelligent</I> barely encompassed that kind of |
| improvisation. But there was something else in Cunningham's face, |
| some deeper distress nested inside what he'd already told me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It was <I>stupid</I>," he said. "The things these |
| creatures can do, it was just <I>dumb</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well it didn't work, did it? Couldn't keep it up in front of |
| more than one or two of us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because people's eyes don't flicker in synch, I realized. Too many |
| witnesses stripped it of cover. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "—many <I>other</I> things it could have done," |
| Cunningham was saying. "They could've induced Anton's or, or an |
| agnosia: then we could have tripped over a whole herd of scramblers |
| and it wouldn't even register in our conscious minds. Agnosias |
| happen by <I>accident</I>, for God's sake. If you've got the senses |
| and reflexes to hide between someone's saccades, why stop there? Why |
| not do something that <I>really</I> works?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why do you think?" I asked, reflexively nondirective.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think that first one was—you know it was a juvenile, |
| right? Maybe it was just inexperienced. Maybe it was <I>stupid</I>, |
| and it made a bad decision. I think we're dealing with a species so |
| far beyond us that even their retarded <I>children</I> can rewire our |
| brains on the fly, and I can't tell you how fucking scared that |
| should make you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I could see it in his topology. I could hear it in his voice. His |
| nerveless face remained as calm as a corpse.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We should just kill them now," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, if they're spies, they can't have learned much. They've |
| been in those cages the whole time, except—" <I>for the |
| way up</I>. They'd been right next to us the whole trip back…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "These things live and breath EM. Even stunted, even isolated, |
| who knows how much of our tech they could have just read through the |
| <I>walls</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You've got to tell Sarasti," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, Sarasti knows. Why do you think he wouldn't let them go?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He never said anything about—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He'd be <I>crazy</I> to fill us in. He keeps sending you <I>down</I> |
| there, remember? Do you think for a second he'd tell you what he |
| knows and then set you loose in a labyrinth full of mind-reading |
| minotaurs? He knows, and he's already got it factored a thousand |
| ways to Sunday." Cunningham's eyes were bright manic points blazing |
| in an expressionless mask. He raised them to the center of the drum, |
| and didn't raise his voice a decibel. "Isn't that right, Jukka?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I checked ConSensus for active channels. "I don't think he's |
| listening, Robert."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham's mouth moved in something that would have been a pitying |
| smile if the rest of his face had been able to join in. "He |
| doesn't have to <I>listen</I>, Keeton. He doesn't have to spy on us. |
| He just <I>knows</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ventilators, breathing. The almost-subliminal hum of bearings in |
| motion. Then Sarasti's disembodied voice rang forth through the |
| drum.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Everyone to Commons. Robert wants to share."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham sat to my right, his plastic face lit from beneath by the |
| conference table. He stared down into that light, rocking |
| slightly. His lips went through the ongoing motions of some |
| inaudible incantation. The Gang sat across from us. To my left |
| Bates kept one eye on the proceedings and another on intelligence |
| from the front lines.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti was with us only in spirit. His place at the head of the |
| table remained empty. "Tell them," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We have to get out of h—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "From the <I>beginning</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham swallowed and started again. "Those frayed motor |
| nerves I couldn't figure out, those pointless |
| cross-connections—they're logic gates. Scramblers <I>time-share</I>. |
| Their sensory and motor plexii double as associative neurons during |
| idle time, so every part of the system can be used for cognition when |
| it isn't otherwise engaged. Nothing like it ever evolved on Earth. |
| It means they can do a great deal of processing without a lot of |
| dedicated associative mass, even for an individual."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So peripheral nerves can think?" Bates frowned. "Can |
| they <I>remember</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Certainly. At least, I don't see why not." Cunningham |
| pulled a cigarette from his pocket.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So when they tore that scrambler apart—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not civil war. Data dump. Passing information about <I>us</I>, |
| most likely."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Pretty radical way to carry on a conversation," Bates |
| remarked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It wouldn't be their first choice. I think each scrambler acts |
| as a node in a distributed network, when they're in <I>Rorschach</I> |
| at least. But those fields would be configured down to the Angstrom, |
| and when we go in with our tech and our shielding and blowing <I>holes</I> |
| in their conductors—we bollocks up the network. Jam the local |
| signal. So they resort to a sneakernet."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He had not lit his cigarette. He rolled the filtered end between |
| thumb and forefinger. His tongue flickered between his lips like a |
| worm behind a mask.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Hidden in his tent, Sarasti took up the slack. "Scramblers also |
| use <I>Rorschach</I>'s EM for metabolic processes. Some pathways |
| achieve proton transfer via heavy-atom tunneling. Perhaps the |
| ambient radiation acts as a catalyst."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Tunneling</I>?" Susan said. "As in <I>quantum</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham nodded. "Which also explains your shielding |
| problems. Partly, at least."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But is that even <I>possible</I>? I mean, I thought those kind |
| of effects only showed up under cryonic—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Forget</I> this," Cunningham blurted. "We can |
| debate the biochemistry later, if we're still alive."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do we debate instead, Robert?" Sarasti said smoothly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "For starters, the <I>dumbest </I>of these things can look into |
| your head and see what parts of your visual cortex are lighting up. |
| And if there's a difference between that and mind-reading, it's not |
| much of one."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As long as we stay out of <I>Rorschach</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That ship has <I>sailed</I>. You people have already <I>been</I> |
| there. Repeatedly. Who knows what you already did down there for no |
| better reason than because <I>Rorschach</I> <I>made</I> you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Wait a second," Bates objected. "None of us were |
| <I>puppets</I> down there. We hallucinated and we went blind and—and |
| crazy even, but we were never <I>possessed</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham looked at her and snorted. "You think you'd be able |
| to fight the strings? You think you'd even <I>feel</I> them? I |
| could apply a transcranial magnet to your head right now and you'd |
| raise your middle finger or wiggle your toes or kick Siri here in the |
| sack and then swear on your sainted mother's grave that you only did |
| it because you <I>wanted</I> to. You'd dance like a puppet and all |
| the time swear you were doing it of your own free will, and that's |
| just <I>me</I>, that's just some borderline OCD with a couple of |
| magnets and an MRI helmet." He waved at the vast unknowable |
| void beyond the bulkhead. Shreds of mangled cigarette floated |
| sideways in front of him. "Do you want to guess what <I>that</I> |
| can do? For all we know we've already given them <I>Theseus</I>' |
| technical specs, warned them about the Icarus array, and then just |
| decided <I>of our own free will</I> to forget it all."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>We</I> can cause those effects," Sarasti said coolly. |
| "As you say. Strokes cause them. Tumors. Random accidents."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Random?</I> Those were <I>experiments</I>, people! That |
| was <I>vivisection</I>! They let you in so they could take you apart |
| and see what made you tick and you never even <I>knew</I> it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>So what</I>?" the vampire snapped invisibly. Something |
| cold and hungry had edged into his voice. Human topologies shivered |
| around the table, skittish. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "There's a blind spot in the center of your visual field," |
| Sarasti pointed out. "You can't see it. You can't see the |
| saccades in your visual timestream. Just two of the tricks you <I>know</I> |
| about. Many others."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham was nodding. "That's my whole <I>point</I>. |
| <I>Rorschach</I> could be—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not talking about case studies. Brains are survival engines, |
| not truth detectors. If self-deception promotes fitness, the brain |
| lies. Stops noticing— irrelevant things. Truth never matters. |
| Only fitness. By now you don't experience the world as it exists at |
| all. You experience a simulation built from assumptions. Shortcuts. |
| <I>Lies</I>. Whole <I>species</I> is agnosiac by default. |
| <I>Rorschach</I> does nothing to you that you don't already do to |
| yourselves."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody spoke. It was several silent seconds before I realized what |
| had happened.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Jukka Sarasti had just given us a pep talk.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He could have shut down Cunningham's tirade—could have probably |
| shut down a full-scale mutiny—by just sailing into our midst |
| and baring his teeth. By <I>looking</I> at us. But he wasn't trying |
| to frighten us into submission, we were already nervous enough. And |
| he wasn't trying to educate us either, fight fear with fact; the more |
| <I>facts</I> any sane person gathered about <I>Rorschach</I>, the |
| more fearful they'd become. Sarasti was only trying to keep us |
| <I>functional</I>, lost in space on the edge of our lives, facing |
| down this monstrous enigma that might destroy us at any instant for |
| any reason. Sarasti was trying to calm us down: <I> good meat, nice |
| meat</I>. He was trying to keep us from falling apart. <I>There |
| there.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti was practicing <I>psychology</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked around the table. Bates and Cunningham and the Gang sat |
| still and bloodless.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti sucked at it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We have to get out of here," Cunningham said. "These |
| things are way beyond us."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We've shown more aggression than they have," James said, |
| but there was no confidence in her voice.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Rorschach</I> plays those rocks like marbles. We're sitting |
| in the middle of a shooting gallery. Any time it feels like—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's still growing. It's not finished."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's supposed to <I>reassure</I> me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "All I'm saying is, we don't <I>know</I>," James said. |
| "We could have years yet. Centuries."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We have fifteen days," Sarasti announced.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh <I>shit</I>," someone said. Cunningham, probably. |
| Maybe Sascha.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For some reason everyone was looking at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Fifteen days. Who knows what had gone into that number? None of us |
| asked aloud. Maybe Sarasti, in another fit of inept psychology, had |
| made it up on the spur of the moment. Or maybe he'd derived it |
| before we'd even reached orbit, held it back against the |
| possibility—only now expired— that he might yet send us |
| back into the labyrinth. I'd been half blind for half the mission; I |
| didn't know.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But one way or another, we had our Graduation Day.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The coffins lay against the rear bulkhead of the crypt—on what |
| would be the floor during those moments when <I>up</I> and <I>down</I> |
| held any meaning. We'd slept for years on the way out. We'd had no |
| awareness of time's passage—undead metabolism is far too |
| sluggish even to support dreams—but somehow the body knew when |
| it needed a change. Not one of us had chosen to sleep in our pods |
| once we'd arrived. The only times we'd done so had been on pain of |
| death.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But the Gang had taken to coming here ever since Szpindel had died.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His body rested in the pod next to mine. I coasted into the |
| compartment and turned left without thinking. Five coffins: four |
| open and emptied, one sealed. The mirrored bulkhead opposite doubled |
| their number and the depth of the compartment.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But the Gang wasn't there.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned right. The body of Susan James floated back-to-back with |
| her own reflection, staring at an inverse tableau: three sealed |
| sarcophagi, one open. The ebony plaque set into the retracted lid |
| was dark; the others shone with identical sparse mosaics of blue and |
| green stars. None of them changed. There were no scrolling ECGs, no |
| luminous peak-and-valley tracings marked cardio or cns. We could |
| wait here for hours, days, and none of those diodes would so much as |
| twinkle. When you're undead, the emphasis is on the second syllable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang's topology had said <I>Michelle</I> when I'd first arrived, |
| but it was <I>Susan</I> who spoke now, without turning. "I |
| never met her."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I followed her gaze to the name tag one of the sealed pods: |
| <I>Takamatsu</I>. The other linguist, the other multiple.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I met everyone else," Susan continued. "Trained with |
| them. But I never met my own replacement."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They discouraged it. What would have been the point?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If you want to—" I began.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "Thanks anyway."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Or any of the others—I can only imagine what Michelle—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan smiled, but there was something cold about it. "Michelle |
| doesn't really want to talk to you right now, Siri."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah." I hesitated for a moment, to give anyone else a |
| chance to speak up. When nobody did, I pushed myself back towards |
| the hatch. "Well, if any of you change—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No. None of us. <I>Ever</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cruncher.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You <I>lie</I>," he continued. "I see it. We all |
| do."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I blinked. "Lie? No, I—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't <I>talk.</I> You <I>listen</I>. You don't care |
| about Michelle. Don't care about anyone. You just want what we |
| <I>know</I>. For your <I>reports</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's not entirely true, Cruncher. I do care. I know |
| Michelle must—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't know <I>shit</I>. Go away."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm sorry I upset you." I rolled on my axis and braced |
| against the mirror.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You <I>can't</I> know Meesh," he growled as I pushed off. |
| "You never <I>lost</I> anyone. You never <I>had</I> anyone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You leave her alone."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He was wrong on both counts. And at least Szpindel had died knowing |
| that Michelle cared for him.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea died thinking I just didn't give a shit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It had been two years or more, and while we still interfaced |
| occasionally we hadn't met in the flesh since the day she'd left. |
| She came at me from right out of the Oort, sent an urgent voice |
| message to my inlays: <I>Cygnus. Please call NOW. It's important.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was the first time since I'd known her that she'd ever blanked the |
| optics.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I knew it was important. I knew it was bad, even without picture. I |
| knew <I>because</I> there was no picture, and I could tell it was |
| worse than bad from the harmonics in her voice. I could tell it was |
| lethal.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I found out afterwards that she'd gotten caught in the crossfire. |
| The Realists had sown a fibrodysplasia variant outside the Boston |
| catacombs; an easy tweak, a single-point retroviral whose results |
| served both as an act of terrorism and an ironic commentary on the |
| frozen paralysis of Heaven's occupants. It rewrote a regulatory gene |
| controlling ossification on Chromosome 4, and rigged a metabolic |
| bypass at three loci on 17.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Chelsea started growing a new skeleton. Her joints were calcifying |
| within fifteen hours of exposure, her ligaments and tendons within |
| twenty. By then they were starving her at the cellular level, trying |
| to slow the bug by depriving it of metabolites, but they could only |
| buy time and not much of it. Twenty-three hours in, her striated |
| muscles were turning to stone.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't find this out immediately, because I didn't call her back. |
| I didn't need to know the details. I could tell from her voice that |
| she was dying. Obviously she wanted to say goodbye.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't talk to her until I knew how to do that.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I spent hours scouring the noosphere, looking for precedents. |
| There's no shortage of ways to die; I found millions of case records |
| dealing with the etiquette. Last words, last vows, instruction |
| manuals for the soon-to-bereaved. Palliative neuropharm. Extended |
| and expository death scenes in popular fiction. I went through it |
| all, assigned a dozen front-line filters to separate heat from light.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By the time she called again the news was out: acute Golem outbreak |
| lancing like a white-hot needle through the heart of Boston. |
| Containment measures holding. Heaven secure. Modest casualties |
| expected. Names of victims withheld pending notification of kin.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I still didn't know the principles, the <I>rules</I>: all I had were |
| examples. Last wills and testaments; the negotiation of jumpers with |
| their would-be rescuers; diaries recovered from imploded submarines |
| or lunar crash sites. Recorded memoirs and deathbed confessions |
| rattling into flatline. Black box transcripts of doomed spaceships |
| and falling beanstalks, ending in fire and static. All of it |
| relevant. None of it useful; none of it <I>her</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She called again, and still the optics were blank, and still I didn't |
| answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But the last time she called, she didn't spare me the view.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They'd made her as comfortable as possible. The gelpad conformed to |
| every twisted limb, every erupting spur of bone. They would not have |
| left her in any pain.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her neck had torqued down and to the side as it petrified, left her |
| staring at the twisted claw that had once been her right hand. Her |
| knuckles were the size of walnuts. Plates and ribbons of ectopic |
| bone distended the skin of her arms and shoulders, buried her ribs in |
| a fibrous mat of calcified flesh.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Movement was its own worst enemy. Golem punished even the slightest |
| twitch, provoked the growth of fresh bone along any joints and |
| surfaces conspiring to motion. Each hinge and socket had its own |
| nonrenewable ration of flexibility, carved in stone; every movement |
| depleted the account. The body seized incrementally. By the time |
| she let me look at her, Chelsea had almost exhausted her degrees of |
| freedom.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Cyg," she slurred. "Know you're there." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her jaw was locked half-open; her tongue must have stiffened with |
| every word. She did not look at the camera. She could not look at |
| the camera.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Guess I know why you're not answ'ring. I'll try'nt—<I>try |
| not</I> to take it pers'n'lly."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ten thousand deathbed goodbyes arrayed around me, a million more |
| within reach. What was I supposed to do, pick one at random? Stitch |
| them into some kind of composite? All these words had been for other |
| people. Grafting them onto Chelsea would reduce them to clichés, |
| to trite platitudes. To insults.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Want t'say, don' feel bad. I know y're just— 's'not your |
| fault, I guess. You'd pick up if you could."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And say what? What do you say to someone who's dying in fast-forward |
| before your eyes?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Just keep trying t'connect, y'know. Can't help m'self…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Although the essentials of this farewell are accurate, details |
| from several deaths have been combined for dramatic purposes</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Please? Jus'—talk to me, Cyg…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| More than anything, I wanted to. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri, I…just…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd spent all this time trying to figure out <I>how</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Forget't," she said, and disconnected.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I whispered something into the dead air. I don't even remember what.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I really wanted to talk to her. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Ye |
| shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Aldous |
| Huxley</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They'd hoped, by now, to have banished sleep forever.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The waste was nothing short of obscene: a third of every Human life |
| spent with its strings cut, insensate, the body burning fuel but not |
| <I>producing</I>. Think of all we could accomplish if we didn't have |
| to lapse into unconsciousness every fifteen hours or so, if our minds |
| could stay awake and alert from the moment of infancy to that final |
| curtain call a hundred twenty years later. Think of eight billion |
| souls with no off switch and no down time until the very chassis wore |
| out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Why, we could go to the stars.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It hadn't worked out that way. Even if we'd outgrown the need to |
| stay quiet and hidden during the dark hours—the only predators |
| left were those we'd brought back ourselves—the brain still |
| needed time apart from the world outside. Experiences had to be |
| catalogued and filed, mid-term memories promoted to long-term ones, |
| free radicals swept from their hiding places among the dendrites. We |
| had only reduced the need for sleep, not eliminated it—and that |
| incompressible residue of downtime seemed barely able to contain the |
| dreams and phantoms left behind. They squirmed in my head like |
| creatures in a draining tidal pool.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I woke. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was alone, weightless, in the center of my tent. I could have |
| sworn something had tapped me on the back. Leftover hallucination, I |
| thought. A lingering aftereffect of the haunted mansion, going for |
| one last bit of gooseflesh en route to extinction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But it happened again. I bumped against the keelward curve of the |
| bubble, bumped again, head and shoulder-blades against fabric; the |
| rest of me came after, moving gently but irresistibly—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Down</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> was accelerating.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No. Wrong direction. <I>Theseus</I> was <I>rolling</I>, like a |
| harpooned whale at the surface of the sea. Turning her belly to the |
| stars.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I brought up ConSensus and threw a Nav-tac summary against the wall. |
| A luminous point erupted from the outline of our ship, crawled away |
| from Big Ben leaving a bright filament etched in its wake. I watched |
| until the numbers read <I>15G</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri. My quarters, please."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I jumped. It sounded as though the vampire had been at my very |
| shoulder. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Coming."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| An ampsat relay, climbing at long last to an intercept with the |
| Icarus antimatter stream. Somewhere behind the call of duty, my |
| heart sank.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We weren't running, Robert Cunningham's fondest wishes |
| notwithstanding. <I>Theseus</I> was stockpiling ordnance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The open hatch gaped like a cave in the face of a cliff. The pale |
| blue light from the spine couldn't seem to reach inside. Sarasti |
| was barely more than a silhouette, black on gray, his bright bloody |
| eyes reflecting catlike in the surrounding gloom.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Come." He amped up the shorter wavelengths in deference |
| to human vision. The interior of the bubble brightened, although the |
| light remained slightly red-shifted. Like <I>Rorschach</I> with high |
| beams.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I floated into Sarasti's parlor. His face, normally paper-white, was |
| so flushed it looked sunburned. <I>He gorged himself</I>, I couldn't |
| help thinking. <I>He drank deep</I>. But all that blood was his |
| own. Usually he kept it deep in the flesh, favoring the vital |
| organs. Vampires were efficient that way. They only washed out |
| their peripheral tissues occasionally, when lactate levels got too |
| high.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Or when they were hunting.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He had a needle to his throat, injected himself with three cc's of |
| clear liquid as I watched. His antiEuclideans. I wondered how often |
| he had to replenish them, now that he'd lost faith in the implants. |
| He withdrew the needle and slipped it into a sheath geckoed to a |
| convenient strut. His color drained as I watched, sinking back to |
| the core, leaving his skin waxy and corpselike.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're here as official observer," Sarasti said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I observed. His quarters were even more spartan than mine. No |
| personal effects to speak of. No custom coffin lined with |
| shrink-wrapped soil. Nothing but two jumpsuits, a pouch for |
| toiletries, and a disconnected fiberop umbilicus half as thick as my |
| little finger, floating like a roundworm in formalin. Sarasti's |
| hardline to the Captain. Not even a cortical jack, I remembered. It |
| plugged into the medulla, the brainstem. That was logical enough; |
| that was where all the neural cabling converged, the point of |
| greatest bandwidth. Still, it was a disquieting thought—that |
| Sarasti linked to the ship through the brain of a reptile. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| An image flared on the wall, subtly distorted against the concave |
| surface: Stretch and Clench in their adjoining cells, rendered in |
| splitscreen. Cryptic vitals defaced little grids below each image. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The distortion distracted me. I looked for a corrected feed in |
| ConSensus, came up empty. Sarasti read my expression: "Closed |
| circuit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| By now the scramblers would have seemed sick and ragged even to a |
| virgin audience. They floated near the middle of their respective |
| compartments, segmented arms drifting aimlessly back and forth. |
| Membranous patches of—skin, I suppose—were peeling from |
| the cuticles, giving them a fuzzy, decomposing aspect.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The arms move continuously," Sarasti remarked. "Robert |
| says it assists in circulation."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded, watching the display.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Creatures that move between stars can't even perform basic |
| metabolic functions without constant flailing." He shook his |
| head. "Inefficient. Primitive."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I glanced at the vampire. He remained fixed on our captives.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Obscene</I>," he said, and moved his fingers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A new window opened on the wall: the Rosetta protocol, initializing. |
| Kilometers away, microwaves flooded the holding tanks.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I reminded myself: <I>No interference. Only observation</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| However weakened their condition, the scramblers were not yet |
| indifferent to pain. They knew the game, they knew the rules; they |
| dragged themselves to their respective panels and played for mercy. |
| Sarasti had simply invoked a step-by-step replay of some previous |
| sequence. The scramblers went through it all again, buying a few |
| moments' intermittent respite with the same old proofs and theorems.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked, then spoke: "They regenerate these solutions |
| faster than they did before. Do you think they're acclimated to the |
| microwaves?" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Another readout appeared on the display; an audio alarm began |
| chirping somewhere nearby. I looked at Sarasti, and back at the |
| readout: a solid circle of turquoise backlit by a pulsing red halo. |
| The shape meant <I>atmospheric anomaly</I>. The color meant <I>oxygen</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt a moment of confusion—(<I>Oxygen? Why would </I>oxygen<I> |
| set off the alarm?</I>)—until I remembered: Scramblers were |
| <I>anaerobes</I>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti muted the alarm with a wave of his hand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I cleared my throat: "You're <I>poisoning</I>—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Watch. Performance is consistent. No change."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I swallowed. <I>Just observe.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Is this an execution?" I asked. "Is this a, a mercy |
| killing?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti looked past me, and smiled. "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I dropped my eyes. "What, then?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He pointed at the display. I turned, reflexively obedient.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something stabbed my hand like a spike at a crucifixion.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I screamed. Electric pain jolted to my shoulder. I yanked my hand |
| back without thinking; the embedded blade split its flesh like a fin |
| through water. Blood sprayed into the air and stayed there, a |
| comet's tail of droplets tracing the frenzied arc of my hand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sudden scalding heat from behind. Flesh charred on my back. I |
| screamed again, flailing. A veil of bloody droplets swirled in the |
| air.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Somehow I was in the corridor, staring dumbly at my right hand. It |
| had been split to the heel of the palm, flopped at the end of my |
| wrist in two bloody, bifingered chunks. Blood welled from the torn |
| edges and wouldn't fall. Sarasti advanced through a haze of trauma |
| and confusion. His face swam in and out of focus, rich with his |
| blood or mine. His eyes were bright red mirrors, his eyes were time |
| machines. Darkness roared around them and it was half a million |
| years ago and I was just another piece of meat on the African |
| savannah, a split-second from having its throat torn out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you see the problem?" Sarasti asked, advancing. A |
| great spider crab hovered at his shoulder. I forced focus through |
| the pain: one of Bates' grunts, taking aim. I kicked blindly, hit |
| the ladder through sheer happenstance, careened backwards down the |
| corridor.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The vampire came after me, his face split into something that would |
| have been a smile on anyone else. "Conscious of pain, you're |
| <I>distracted</I> by pain. You're<I> fixated</I> on it. Obsessed by |
| the one threat, you miss the other."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I flailed. Crimson mist stung my eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So much more <I>aware</I>, so much less <I>perceptive.</I> An |
| automaton could do better."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>He's snapped</I>, I thought. <I>He's insane</I>. And then <I>No, |
| he's a transient</I>.<I> He's always been a transient</I>—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>They</I> could do better," he said softly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<I>and he's been hiding for days. Deep down. Hiding from the |
| seals. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>What </I>else<I> would he do?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti raised his hands, fading in and out of focus. I hit |
| something, kicked without aiming, bounced away through swirling mist |
| and startled voices. Metal cracked the back of my head and spun me |
| around.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A hole, a burrow. A place to hide. I dove through, my torn hand |
| flapping like a dead fish against the edge of the hatch. I cried out |
| and tumbled into the drum, the monster at my heels.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Startled shouts, very close now. "This wasn't the plan, Jukka! |
| <I>This wasn't the goddamned plan!</I>" That was Susan James, |
| full of outrage, while Amanda Bates snarled "<I>Stand down, |
| right fucking now!</I>" and leapt from the deck to do battle. |
| She rose through the air, all overclocked reflexes and carboplatinum |
| augments but Sarasti just batted her aside and kept on coming. His |
| arm shot out like a striking snake. His hand clamped around my |
| throat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Is this what you meant?" James cried from some dark |
| irrelevant hiding place. "Is this your <I>preconditioning</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti <I>shook</I> me. "Are you <I>in </I>there, Keeton?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My blood splattered across his face like rain. I babbled and cried.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Are you <I>listening?</I> Can you <I>see</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And suddenly I could. Suddenly everything clicked into focus. |
| Sarasti wasn't talking at all. Sarasti didn't even exist anymore. |
| Nobody did. I was alone in a great spinning wheel surrounded by |
| things that were made out of meat, things that moved <I>all by |
| themselves</I>. Some of them were wrapped in pieces of cloth. |
| Strange nonsensical sounds came from holes at their top ends, and |
| there were <I>other</I> things up there, bumps and ridges and |
| something like marbles or black buttons, wet and shiny and embedded |
| in the slabs of meat. They glistened and jiggled and moved as if |
| trying to escape.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't understand the sounds the meat was making, but I heard a |
| voice from somewhere. It was like God talking, and that I couldn't |
| <I>help</I> but understand.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Get out of your <I>room</I>, Keeton," it hissed. "Stop |
| <I>transposing</I> or <I>interpolating </I>or <I>rotating</I> or |
| whatever it is you do. Just <I>listen</I>. For once in your |
| goddamned life, <I>understand</I> something. Understand that your |
| life depends on it. Are you <I>listening</I>, Keeton?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And I cannot tell you what it said. I can only tell you what I |
| heard.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You invest so much in it, don't you? It's what elevates you above |
| the beasts of the field, it's what makes you <I>special</I>. Homo |
| <I>sapiens</I>, you call yourself. Wise Man. Do you even know what |
| it <I>is</I>, this <I>consciousness</I> you cite in your own |
| exaltation? Do you even know what it's <I>for</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe you think it gives you free will. Maybe you've forgotten that |
| sleepwalkers converse, drive vehicles, commit crimes and clean up |
| afterwards, unconscious the whole time. Maybe nobody's told you that |
| even <I>waking</I> souls are only slaves in denial. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Make a conscious choice. <I>Decide</I> to move your index finger. |
| Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your |
| body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self |
| 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something <I>else</I> set |
| your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an |
| afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little |
| man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as <I>the</I> |
| person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and |
| it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But it's not in charge. <I>You're</I> not in charge. If free will |
| even exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of |
| theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively <I>human</I> |
| pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe |
| <I>that</I>'s what sentience would be for— if scientific |
| breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the <I>sub</I>conscious |
| mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a |
| deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied |
| researcher: <I>stop thinking about the problem</I>. Do something |
| else. It will come to you if you just stop being <I>conscious</I> of |
| it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance |
| is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and |
| acrobat knows enough to let the mind <I>go</I>, let the body run |
| itself. Every driver of any manual vehicle arrives at destinations |
| with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in |
| getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative |
| peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth |
| time. You are all sleepwalkers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Don't even <I>try</I> to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother |
| citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious |
| performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the |
| gift-wrapped Eureka moment. So what if <I>your</I> lessons are all |
| learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? |
| Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred |
| years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, |
| statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to |
| solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through |
| <I>sentience</I>? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal |
| existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of |
| agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your |
| parents.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know |
| the only <I>real</I> purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't |
| see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on |
| one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse |
| reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of |
| <I>anything</I>. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Oh, but you can't. There's something in the way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And it's fighting back.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Evolution has no foresight. Complex machinery develops its own |
| agendas. Brains—cheat. Feedback loops evolve to promote |
| stable heartbeats and then stumble upon the temptation of rhythm and |
| music. The rush evoked by fractal imagery, the algorithms used for |
| habitat selection, metastasize into art. Thrills that once had to be |
| <I>earned</I> in increments of fitness can now be had from pointless |
| introspection. Aesthetics rise unbidden from a trillion dopamine |
| receptors, and the system moves beyond modeling the organism. It |
| begins to model the very <I>process</I> of modeling. It consumes |
| ever-more computational resources, bogs itself down with endless |
| recursion and irrelevant simulations. Like the parasitic DNA that |
| accretes in every natural genome, it persists and proliferates and |
| produces nothing but itself. Metaprocesses bloom like cancer, and |
| awaken, and call themselves <I>I</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The system weakens, slows. It takes so much longer now to |
| <I>perceive</I>—to assess the input, mull it over, <I>decide</I> |
| in the manner of cognitive beings. But when the flash flood crosses |
| your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced |
| self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does |
| its best. It sees the danger, hijacks the body, reacts a hundred |
| times faster than that fat old man sitting in the CEO's office |
| upstairs; but every generation it gets harder to work around this— |
| this creaking neurological bureaucracy. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I</I> wastes energy and processing power, self-obsesses to the |
| point of psychosis. Scramblers have no need of it, scramblers are |
| more parsimonious. With simpler biochemistries, with smaller |
| brains—deprived of tools, of their ship, even of parts of their |
| own metabolism—they think rings around you. They hide their |
| language in plain sight, even when you know what they're saying. |
| They turn your own cognition against itself. <I>They travel between |
| the stars</I>. This is what intelligence can do, unhampered by |
| self-awareness.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I</I> is not the working mind, you see. For Amanda Bates to say |
| "I do not exist" would be nonsense; but when the processes |
| beneath say the same thing, they are merely reporting that the |
| parasites have died. They are only saying that they are free.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">If |
| the human brain were so simple that we could understand it,</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">we |
| would be so simple that we couldn't."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Emerson |
| M. Pugh</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Sarasti, you bloodsucker. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My knees pressed against my forehead. I hugged my folded legs as |
| though clinging to a branch over a chasm.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>You vicious asshole. You foul sadistic monster.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My breath rasped loud and mechanical. It nearly drowned out the |
| blood roaring in my ears.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>You tore me apart, you made me piss and shit myself and I cried |
| like some gutted baby and you stripped me naked, you fucking</I> |
| thing, <I>you night crawler, you broke my tools, you took away |
| anything I ever had that let me touch</I> anyone <I>and</I> you |
| didn't have to<I> you babyfucker, it wasn't necessary but you knew |
| that didn't you? You just wanted to play. I've seen your kind at it |
| before, cats toying with mice, catch and release, a taste of freedom |
| and then pouncing again, biting, not hard enough to kill— not |
| just yet—before you let them loose again and they're hobbling |
| now, maybe a leg snapped or a gash in the belly but they're still |
| </I>trying<I>, still running or crawling or dragging themselves as |
| fast as they can until you're on them </I>again<I>, and</I> again |
| <I>because it's</I> fun,<I> because it gives you</I> pleasure <I>you |
| sadistic piece of shit. You send us into the arms of that hellish |
| thing and it plays with us too, and maybe you're even working |
| together because it let me escape just like you do, it let me run |
| right back into your arms and then you strip me down to some raw |
| half-brained defenseless </I>animal<I>, I can't rotate or transform I |
| can't even</I> talk <I>and you—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>You—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>It wasn't even personal, was it? You don't even hate me. You |
| were just sick of keeping it all in, sick of</I> restraining<I> |
| yourself with all this meat, and nobody else could be spared from |
| their jobs. This was </I>my<I> job, wasn't it? Not synthesist, not |
| conduit. Not even cannon fodder or decoy duty. I'm just something |
| disposable to sharpen your claws on.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I hurt so much. It hurt just to breathe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was so <I>alone</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Webbing pressed against the curve of my back, bounced me forward |
| gently as a breeze, caught me again. I was back in my tent. My |
| right hand itched. I tried to flex the fingers, but they were |
| embedded in amber. Left hand reached for right, and found a plastic |
| carapace extending to the elbow.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I opened my eyes. Darkness. Meaningless numbers and a red LED |
| twinkled from somewhere along my forearm.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't remember coming here. I didn't remember anyone fixing me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Breaking. Being broken. That's what I remembered. I wanted to die. |
| I wanted to just stay curled up until I withered away. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| After an age, I forced myself to uncoil. I steadied myself, let some |
| miniscule inertia bump me against the taut insulated fabric of my |
| tent. I waited for my breathing to steady. It seemed to take hours. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I called ConSensus to the wall, and a feed from the drum. Soft |
| voices, harsh light flaring against the wall: hurting my eyes, |
| peeling them raw. I killed visual, and listened to words in the |
| darkness.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "—a phase?" someone asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan James, her personhood restored. I knew her again: not a meat |
| sack, no longer a <I>thing</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We <I>have</I> been over this." That was Cunningham. I |
| knew him too. I knew them all. Whatever Sarasti had done to me, |
| however far he'd yanked me from my room, I'd somehow fallen back |
| inside.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It should have mattered more.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "—because for one thing, if it were really so pernicious, |
| natural selection would have weeded it out," James was saying.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You have a naïve understanding of evolutionary processes. |
| There's no such thing as <I>survival of the fittest</I>. <I>Survival |
| of the most adequate</I>, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a |
| solution's optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the |
| alternatives."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I knew that voice too. It belonged to a demon.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well, <I>we</I> damn well <I>beat the alternatives</I>." |
| Some subtle overdubbed harmonic in James' voice suggested a chorus: |
| the whole Gang, rising as one in opposition.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't believe it. I'd just been mutilated, beaten before their |
| eyes—and they were talking about <I>biology</I>?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Maybe she's afraid to talk about anything else</I>, I thought. |
| <I>Maybe she's afraid she might be next.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Or maybe she just couldn't care less what happens to me.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's true," Sarasti told her, "that your intellect |
| makes up for your self-awareness to some extent. But you're |
| flightless birds on a remote island. You're not so much successful |
| as <I>isolated</I> from any real competition."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No more clipped speech patterns. No more terse phrasing. The |
| transient had made his kill, found his release. Now he didn't care |
| <I>who </I>knew he was around.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You?" Michelle whispered. "Not <I>we</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>We</I> stop racing long ago," the demon said at last. |
| "It's not our fault you don't leave it at that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Ah." Cunningham again. "Welcome back. Did you look |
| in on Ke—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No." Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Satisfied?" the demon asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "If you mean the grunts, I'm satisfied you're out of them," |
| Bates said. "If you mean— it was completely unwarranted, |
| Jukka."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It isn't."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You assaulted a crewmember. If we had a brig you'd be in it |
| for the rest of the trip."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "This isn't a military vessel, Major. You're not in charge."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't need a visual feed to know what Bates thought of that. But |
| there was something else in her silence, something that made me bring |
| the drum camera back online. I squinted against the corrosive light, |
| brought down the brightness until all that remained was a faint |
| whisper of pastels.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Yes. Bates. Stepping off the stairway onto the deck |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Grab a chair," Cunningham said from his seat in the |
| Commons. "It's golden oldies time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was something about her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm sick of that song," Bates said. "We've played it |
| to death." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Even now, my tools chipped and battered, my perceptions barely more |
| than baseline, I could see the change. This torture of prisoners, |
| this assault upon crew, had crossed a line in her head. The |
| others wouldn't see it. The lid on her affect was tight as a |
| boilerplate. But even through the dim shadows of my window the |
| topology glowed around her like neon.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Amanda Bates was no longer merely <I>considering</I> a change of |
| command. Now it was only a matter of when.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The universe was closed and concentric.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My tiny refuge lay in its center. Outside that shell was another, |
| ruled by a monster, patrolled by his lackeys. Beyond that was |
| another still, containing something even more monstrous and |
| incomprehensible, something that might soon devour us all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was nothing else. Earth was a vague hypothesis, irrelevant to |
| this pocket cosmos. I saw no place into which it might fit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I stayed in the center of the universe for a long time, hiding. I |
| kept the lights off. I didn't eat. I crept from my tent only to |
| piss or shit in the cramped head down at Fab, and only when the spine |
| was deserted. A field of painful blisters rose across my |
| flash-burned back, as densely packed as kernels on a corncob. The |
| slightest abrasion tore them open. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Nobody tapped at my door, nobody called my name through ConSensus. I |
| wouldn't have answered if they had. Maybe they knew that, somehow. |
| Maybe they kept their distance out of respect for my privacy and my |
| disgrace.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe they just didn't give a shit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I peeked outside now and then, kept an eye on Tactical. I saw <I>Scylla</I> |
| and <I>Charybdis</I> climb into the accretion belt and return towing |
| captured reaction mass in a great distended mesh between them. I |
| watched our ampsat reach its destination in the middle of nowhere, |
| saw antimatter's quantum blueprints stream down into <I>Theseus</I>'s |
| buffers. Mass and specs combined in Fab, topped up our reserves, |
| forged the tools that Jukka Sarasti needed for his master plan, |
| whatever that was.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe he'd lose. Maybe <I>Rorschach</I> would kill us all, but not |
| before it had played with Sarasti the way Sarasti had played with me. |
| That would almost make it worthwhile. Or maybe Bates' mutiny would |
| come first, and succeed. Maybe she would slay the monster, and |
| commandeer the ship, and take us all to safety.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small. |
| There was really nowhere else to go.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I put my ear to feeds throughout the ship. I heard routine |
| instructions from the predator, murmured conversations among the |
| prey. I took in only sound, never sight; a video feed would have |
| spilled light into my tent, left me naked and exposed. So I listened |
| in the darkness as the others spoke among themselves. It didn't |
| happen often any more. Perhaps too much had been said already, |
| perhaps there was nothing left to do but mind the countdown. |
| Sometimes hours would pass with no more than a cough or a grunt. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| When they did speak, they never mentioned my name. Only once did I |
| hear any of them even hint at my existence.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That was Cunningham, talking to Sascha about zombies. I heard them |
| in the galley over breakfast, unusually talkative. Sascha hadn't |
| been let out for a while, and was making up for lost time. |
| Cunningham let her, for reasons of his own. Maybe his fears had been |
| soothed somehow, maybe Sarasti had revealed his master plan. Or |
| maybe Cunningham simply craved distraction from the imminence of the |
| enemy.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't <I>bug</I> you?" Sascha was saying. "Thinking |
| that your mind, the very thing that makes you <I>you</I>, is nothing |
| but some kind of parasite?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Forget about <I>minds</I>," he told her. "Say you've |
| got a device designed to monitor—oh, cosmic rays, say. What |
| happens when you turn its sensor around so it's not pointing at the |
| sky anymore, but at its own guts?" He answered himself before |
| she could: "It does what it's built to. It measures cosmic |
| rays, even though it's not looking at them any more. It parses its |
| own circuitry in terms of cosmic-ray metaphors, because those <I>feel</I> |
| right, because they feel natural, because it can't look at things any |
| other way. But it's the <I>wrong metaphor</I>. So the system |
| misunderstands everything about itself. Maybe that's not a grand and |
| glorious evolutionary leap after all. Maybe it's just a design |
| flaw."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But <I>you're</I> the biologist. You know Mom was right |
| better'n anyone. Brain's a big glucose hog. Everything it does |
| costs through the nose."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "True enough," Cunningham admitted.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So sentience has gotta be <I>good</I> for something, then. |
| Because it's <I>expensive</I>, and if it sucks up energy without |
| doing anything useful then evolution's gonna weed it out just like |
| <I>that</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe it did." He paused long enough to chew food or suck |
| smoke. "Chimpanzees are smarter than Orangutans, did you know |
| that? Higher encephalisation quotient. Yet they can't always |
| recognize themselves in a mirror. Orangs can."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So what's your point? Smarter animal, less self-awareness? |
| Chimpanzees are becoming nonsentient?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Or they were, before we stopped everything in its tracks."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So why didn't that happen to us?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What makes you think it didn't?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was such an obviously stupid question that Sascha didn't have an |
| answer for it. I could imagine her gaping in the silence. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're not thinking this through," Cunningham said. |
| "We're not talking about some kind of zombie lurching around |
| with its arms stretched out, spouting mathematical theorems. A smart |
| automaton would <I>blend in</I>. It would observe those around it, |
| mimic their behavior, act just like everyone else. All the while |
| completely unaware of what it was doing. Unaware even of its own |
| existence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why would it bother? What would motivate it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "As long as you pull your hand away from an open flame, who |
| cares whether you do it because it <I>hurts</I> or because some |
| feedback algorithm says <I>withdraw if heat flux exceeds critical T</I>? |
| Natural selection doesn't care about <I>motives</I>. If |
| impersonating something increases fitness, then nature will select |
| good impersonators over bad ones. Keep it up long enough and no |
| conscious being would be able to pick your zombie out of a crowd." |
| Another silence; I could hear him chewing through it. "It'll |
| even be able to participate in a conversation like this one. It |
| could write letters home, impersonate real human feelings, without |
| having the slightest awareness of its own existence."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I dunno, Rob. It just seems—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, it might not be perfect. It might be a bit redundant, or |
| resort to the occasional expository infodump. But even <I>real</I> |
| people do that, don't they?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And eventually, there aren't any real people left. Just robots |
| pretending to give a shit."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Perhaps. Depends on the population dynamics, among other |
| things. But I'd guess that at least one thing an automaton lacks is |
| empathy; if you can't feel, you can't really relate to something that |
| does, even if you <I>act</I> as though you do. Which makes it |
| interesting to note how many sociopaths show up in the world's upper |
| echelons, hmm? How ruthlessness and bottom-line self-interest are so |
| lauded up in the stratosphere, while anyone showing those traits at |
| ground level gets carted off into detention with the Realists. |
| Almost as if society itself is being reshaped from the inside out."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh, come on. Society was <I>always</I> pretty— wait, |
| you're saying the world's corporate elite are <I>nonsentient</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "God, no. Not nearly. Maybe they're just starting down that |
| road. Like chimpanzees."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah, but sociopaths don't blend in well."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe the ones that get diagnosed don't, but by definition |
| they're the bottom of the class. The others are too smart to get |
| caught, and <I>real</I> automatons would do even better. Besides, |
| when you get powerful enough, you don't need to act like other |
| people. Other people start acting like you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha whistled. "Wow. Perfect play-actor."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Or not so perfect. Sound like anyone we know?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They may have been talking about someone else entirely, I suppose. |
| But that was as close to a direct reference to Siri Keeton that I |
| heard in all my hours on the grapevine. Nobody else mentioned me, |
| even in passing. That was statistically unlikely, given what I'd |
| just endured in front of them all; someone should have said |
| <I>something</I>. Perhaps Sarasti had ordered them not to discuss |
| it. I didn't know why. But it was obvious by now that the vampire |
| had been orchestrating their interactions with me for some time. |
| Now I was in hiding, but he knew I'd listen in at some point. Maybe, |
| for some reason, he didn't want my surveillance—contaminated…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He could have simply locked me out of ConSensus. He hadn't. Which |
| meant he still wanted me in the loop.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Zombies. Automatons. Fucking sentience.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>For once in your goddamned life, </I>understand<I> something.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd said that to me. Or something had. During the assault. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Understand that your life depends on it.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Almost as if he were doing me a <I>favor</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Then he'd left me alone. And had evidently told the others to do the |
| same.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Are you </I>listening<I>, Keeton?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And he hadn't locked me out of ConSensus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Centuries of navel-gazing. Millennia of masturbation. Plato to |
| Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. |
| Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. |
| Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional |
| cluster.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I explored it all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the |
| singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim |
| called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even |
| admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then |
| announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after |
| all: no system can fully understand itself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not even the synthesists had been able to rotate it down. The |
| load-bearing beams just couldn't take the strain.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| All of them, I began to realize, had missed the point. All those |
| theories, all those drugdreams and experiments and models trying to |
| prove what consciousness <I>was</I>: none to explain what it was |
| <I>good</I> for. None needed: obviously, consciousness makes us what |
| we are. It lets us see the beauty and the ugliness. It elevates us |
| into the exalted realm of the spiritual. Oh, a few |
| outsiders—Dawkins, Keogh, the occasional writer of hackwork |
| fiction who barely achieved obscurity—wondered briefly at the |
| why of it: why <I>not</I> soft computers, and no more? Why should |
| nonsentient systems be inherently inferior? But they never really |
| raised their voices above the crowd. The value of what we are was |
| too trivially self-evident to ever call into serious question. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Yet the questions persisted, in the minds of the laureates, in the |
| angst of every horny fifteen-year-old on the planet. Am I nothing |
| but sparking chemistry? Am I a magnet in the ether? I am more than |
| my eyes, my ears, my tongue; I am the little thing <I>behind</I> |
| those things, the thing looking out from inside. But who looks out |
| from <I>its</I> eyes? What does it reduce to? Who am I? Who am I?<I> |
| Who am I?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| What a stupid fucking question. I could have answered it in a |
| second, if Sarasti hadn't forced me to understand it first.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Not |
| until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Thoreau</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The shame had scoured me and left me hollow. I didn't care who saw |
| me. I didn't care what state they saw me in. For days I'd floated |
| in my tent, curled into a ball and breathing my own stink while the |
| others made whatever preparations my tormentor had laid out for them. |
| Amanda Bates was the only one who'd raised even a token protest over |
| what Sarasti had done to me. The others kept their eyes down and |
| their mouths shut and did what he told them to— whether from |
| fear or indifference I couldn't tell.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was something else I'd stopped caring about.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sometime during that span the cast on my arm cracked open like a |
| shucked clam. I upped the lumens long enough to assess its |
| handiwork; my repaired palm itched and glistened in twilight, a |
| longer, deeper Fate line running from heel to web. Then back to |
| darkness, and the blind unconvincing illusion of safety.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti wanted me to believe. Somehow he must have thought that |
| brutalising and humiliating me would accomplish that—that |
| broken and drained, I would become an empty vessel to fill as he saw |
| fit. Wasn't it a classic brainwashing technique—to shatter |
| your victim and then glue the pieces back together in according to |
| specs of your own choosing? Maybe he was expecting some kind of |
| Stockholm Syndrome to set in, or maybe his actions followed some |
| agenda incomprehensible to mere meat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Maybe he'd simply gone insane.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He had broken me. He had presented his arguments. I had followed |
| his trail of bread crumbs through ConSensus, through <I>Theseus</I>. |
| And now, only nine days from graduation, I knew one thing for sure: |
| Sarasti was wrong. He had to be. I couldn't see <I>how</I>, but I |
| knew it just the same. He was wrong.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Somehow, absurdly, that had become the one thing I <I>did</I> care |
| about.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No one in the spine. Only Cunningham visible in BioMed, poring over |
| digital dissections, pretending to kill time. I floated above him, |
| my rebuilt hand clinging to the top of the nearest stairwell; it |
| dragged me in a slow, small circle as the Drum turned. Even from up |
| there I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders: a system |
| stuck in a holding pattern, corroding through the long hours as fate |
| advanced with all the time in the world.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He looked up. "Ah. It lives."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I fought the urge to retreat. <I>Just a conversation, for God's |
| sake. It's just two people talking. People do it all the time |
| without your tools. You can do this. You can do this.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Just try</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I forced one foot after another down the stairs, weight and |
| apprehension rising in lockstep. I tried to read Cunningham's |
| topology through the haze. Maybe I saw a facade, only microns deep. |
| Maybe he would welcome almost any distraction, even if he wouldn't |
| admit it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Or maybe I was just imagining it.</FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How are you doing?" he asked as I reached the deck.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shrugged.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hand all better, I see."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No thanks to you." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd tried to stop that from coming out. Really.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Cunningham struck a cigarette. "Actually, I <I>was</I> the one |
| who fixed you up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You also sat there and watched while he took me apart."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I wasn't even there." And then, after a moment: "But |
| you may be right. I might very well have sat it out in any event. |
| Amanda and the Gang <I>did</I> try to intervene on your behalf, from |
| what I hear. Didn't do a lot of good for anyone."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So you wouldn't even try."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Would you, if the sitution were reversed? Go up unarmed |
| against a vampire?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I said nothing. Cunningham regarded me for a long moment, dragging |
| on his cigarette. "He really got to you, didn't he?" he |
| said at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're wrong," I said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Am I."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't <I>play</I> <I>people</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Mmmm." He seemed to consider the proposition. "What |
| word would you prefer, then?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I <I>observe</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That you do. Some might even call it <I>surveillance</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I—I read body language." Hoping that that was all |
| he was talking about.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's a matter of degree and you know it. Even in a crowd |
| there's a certain expectation of privacy. People aren't prepared to |
| have their minds read off every twitch of the eyeball." He |
| stabbed at the air with his cigarette. "And you. You're a |
| shapeshifter. You present a different face to every one of us, and |
| I'll wager none of them is real. The <I>real</I> you, if it even |
| exists, is invisible..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something knotted below my diaphragm. "Who isn't? Who |
| doesn't—try to fit in, who doesn't want to get along? There's |
| nothing <I>malicious</I> about that. I'm a synthesist, for God's |
| sake! I <I>never</I> manipulate the variables."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Well you see, that's the problem. It's not just <I>variables</I> |
| you're manipulating."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Smoke writhed between us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But I guess you can't really understand that, can you." |
| He stood and waved a hand. ConSensus windows imploded at his side. |
| "Not your fault, really. You can't blame someone for the way |
| they're wired."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Give me a fucking break," I snarled.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| His dead face showed nothing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| That, too, had slipped out before I could stop it—and after |
| that came the flood: "You put so much <I>fucking </I>stock in |
| that. You and your <I>empathy</I>. And maybe I <I>am</I> just some |
| kind of imposter but most people would swear I'd worn their very |
| souls. I don't <I>need</I> that shit, you don't have to <I>feel</I> |
| motives to deduce them, it's better if you <I>can't</I>, it keeps |
| you—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Dispassionate?" Cunningham smiled faintly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Maybe your <I>empathy</I>'s just a comforting lie, you ever |
| think of that? Maybe you <I>think </I>you know how the other person |
| feels but you're only feeling <I>yourself</I>, maybe you're even |
| worse than me. Or maybe we're all just guessing. Maybe the only |
| difference is that I don't lie to myself about it."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do they look the way you imagined?" he asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What? What are you talking about?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The scramblers. <I>Multijointed arms from a central mass</I>. |
| Sounds rather similar to me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd been into Szpindel's archives.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I—Not really," I said. "The arms are |
| more—flexible, in real life. More segmented. And I never |
| really got a look at the body. What does that have to do with—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Close, though, wasn't it? Same size, same general body plan."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So <I>what</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why didn't you report it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I did. Isaac said it was just TMS. From <I>Rorschach</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You saw them before <I>Rorschach</I>. Or at least," he |
| continued, "you saw <I>something</I> that scared you into |
| blowing your cover, back when you were spying on Isaac and Michelle."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My rage dissipated like air through a breach. "They—they |
| knew?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only Isaac, I think. And it kept it between it and the logs. |
| I suspect it didn't want to interfere with your <I>noninterference</I> |
| protocols—although I'll wager that was the last time you ever |
| caught the two of them in private, yes?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I didn't say anything.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Did you think the official observer was somehow exempt from |
| observation?" Cunningham asked after a while.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," I said softly. "I suppose not."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded. "Have you seen any since? I'm not talking about |
| run-of-the-mill TMS hallucinations. I mean scramblers. Have you |
| hallucinated any since you actually saw one in the flesh, since you |
| <I>knew</I> what they looked like?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought about it. "No." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He shook his head, some new opinion confirmed. "You really are |
| something, Keeton, you know that? You don't lie to yourself? Even |
| now, you don't know what you know."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What are you talking about?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You <I>figured it out</I>. From <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| architecture, probably—form follows function, yes? Somehow you |
| pieced together a fairly good idea of what a scrambler looked like |
| before anyone ever laid eyes on them. Or at least—" He |
| drew a breath; his cigarette flared like an LED— "part of |
| you did. Some collection of unconscious modules working their asses |
| off on your behalf. But they can't show their work, can they? You |
| don't have conscious access to those levels. So one part of the |
| brain tries to tell another any way it can. Passes notes under the |
| table."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Blindsight," I murmered. <I>You just get a feeling of |
| where to reach...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "More like schizophrenia, except you saw pictures instead of |
| hearing voices. You saw <I>pictures</I>. And you <I>still</I> |
| didn't understand."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I blinked. "But how would I—I mean—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What did you think, that <I>Theseus </I>was haunted? That the |
| scramblers were communing with you telepathically? What you do—it |
| <I>matters</I>, Keeton. They told you you were nothing but their |
| stenographer and they hammered all those layers of hands-off |
| passivity into you but you just had to take some initiative anyway, |
| didn't you? Had to work the problem on your own. The only thing you |
| couldn't do was admit it to yourself." Cunningham shook his |
| head. "Siri Keeton. See what they've done to you." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He touched his face.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "See what they've done to us all," he whispered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I found the Gang floating in the center of the darkened observation |
| blister. She made room as I joined her, pushed to one side and |
| anchored herself to a bit of webbing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Susan?" I asked. I honestly couldn't tell any more.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'll get her," Michelle said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, that's all right. I'd like to speak to all of—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Michelle had already fled. The half-lit figure changed before |
| me, and said, "She'd rather be alone right now."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I nodded. "You?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James shrugged. "I don't mind talking. Although I'm surprised |
| you're still doing your reports, after...."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm—not, exactly. This isn't for Earth." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I looked around. Not much to see. Faraday mesh coated the inside of |
| the dome like a gray film, dimming and graining the view beyond. Ben |
| hung like a black malignancy across half the sky. I could make out a |
| dozen dim contrails against vague bands of cloud, in reds so deep |
| they bordered on black. The sun winked past James's shoulder, <I>our</I> |
| sun, a bright dot that diffracted into faint splintered rainbows when |
| I moved my head. That was pretty much it: starlight didn't |
| penetrate the mesh, nor did the larger, dimmer particles of the |
| accretion belt. The myriad dim pinpoints of shovelnosed machinery |
| were lost utterly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Which might be a comfort to some, I supposed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shitty view," I remarked. <I>Theseus</I> could have |
| projected crisp first-person vistas across the dome in an instant, |
| more real than real.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Michelle likes it," James said. "The way it feels. |
| And Cruncher likes the diffraction effects, he likes— |
| interference patterns."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We watched nothing for a while, by the dim half-light filtering out |
| from the spine. It brushed the edges of James' profile.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You set me up," I said at last.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She looked at me. "What do you mean?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You were talking around me all along, weren't you? All of you. |
| You didn't bring me in until I'd been—" How had she put |
| it? "—<I>preconditioned</I>. The whole thing was planned |
| to throw me off-balance. And then Sarasti— attacks me out of |
| nowhere, and—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We didn't know about that. Not until the alarm went off."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Alarm?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "When he changed the gas mix. You must have heard it. Isn't |
| that why you were there?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He called me to his tent. He told me to watch."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She regarded me from a face full of shadow. "You didn't try to |
| stop him?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I couldn't answer the accusation in her voice. "I |
| just—observe," I said weakly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought you were trying to stop him from—" She |
| shook her head. "<I>That's </I>why I thought he was attacking |
| you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You're saying that wasn't an act? You weren't in on it?" |
| I didn't believe it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I could tell she did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I thought you were trying to <I>protect</I> them." She |
| snorted a soft, humorless laugh at her own mistake and looked away. |
| "I guess I should have known better."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She should have. She should have known that taking orders is one |
| thing; taking <I>sides </I>would have done nothing but compromise my |
| integrity.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And I should have been used to it by now.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I forged on. "It was some kind of object lesson. A, a |
| <I>tutorial</I>. You can't torture the nonsentient or something, and |
| — and I <I>heard</I> you, Susan. It wasn't news to you, it |
| wasn't news to anyone except <I>me</I>, and..." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>And you hid it from me. You all did. You and your whole gang and |
| Amanda too. You've been hashing this out for days and you went out |
| of your way to cover it up. </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>How did I miss it? How did I miss it?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Jukka told us not to discuss it with you," Susan admitted.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why? This is exactly the kind of thing I'm <I>out</I> here |
| for!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He said you'd—resist. Unless it was handled properly."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Handled—Susan, he <I>assaulted</I> me! You <I>saw</I> |
| what he—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We didn't know he was going to do that. None of us did."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And he did it why? To win an argument?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's what he says."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Do you believe him?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Probably." After a moment she shrugged. "Who knows? |
| He's a vampire. He's—opaque."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But his record—I mean, he's, he's never resorted to overt |
| violence before—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shook her head. "Why should he? He doesn't have to |
| convince the <I>rest</I> of us of anything. We have to follow his |
| orders regardless."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So do I," I reminded her.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He's not trying to convince <I>you</I>, Siri."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ah.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I was only a conduit, after all. Sarasti hadn't been making his case |
| to me at all; he'd been making it <I>through </I>me, and—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and he was planning for a second round. Why go to such |
| extremes to present a case to Earth, if Earth was irrelevant? |
| Sarasti didn't expect the game to end out here. He expected Earth to |
| <I>do</I> something in light of his—perspective.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But what difference does it make?" I wondered aloud.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She just looked at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Even if he's right, how does it change anything? How does |
| <I>this</I>—" I raised my repaired hand—"change |
| anything? Scramblers are intelligent, whether they're sentient or |
| not. They're a potential threat either way. We still don't know. |
| So what difference does it make? Why did he <I>do</I> this to me? |
| How does it <I>matter</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Susan raised her face to Big Ben and didn't answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sascha returned her face to me, and tried to.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It matters," she said, "because it means we attacked |
| them before <I>Theseus</I> launched. Before Firefall, even."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>We</I> attacked the—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You don't get it, do you? You don't." Sascha snorted |
| softly. "If that isn't the fucking funniest thing I've heard in |
| my whole short life."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She leaned forward, bright-eyed. "Imagine you're a scrambler, |
| and you encounter a human signal for the very first time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her stare was almost predatory. I resisted the urge to back away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It should be so easy for you, Keeton. It should be the easiest |
| gig you've ever had. Aren't you the user interface, aren't you the |
| Chinese Room? Aren't you the one who never has to look inside, never |
| has to walk a mile in anyone's shoes, because you figure everyone out |
| from their <I>surfaces</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She stared at Ben's dark smoldering disk. "Well, there's your |
| dream date. There's a whole race of nothing <I>but</I> surfaces. |
| There's no <I>inside</I> to figure out. All the rules are right up |
| front. So go to work, Siri Keeton. Make us proud."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was no contempt in Sascha's voice, no disdain. There wasn't |
| even anger, not in her voice, not in her eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was pleading. There were <I>tears</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Imagine you're a scrambler," she whispered again, as they |
| floated like tiny perfect beads before her face.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you're a scrambler.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine you have intellect but no insight, agendas but no <I>awareness</I>. |
| Your circuitry hums with strategies for survival and persistence, |
| flexible, intelligent, even technological—but no other |
| circuitry monitors it. You can think of anything, yet are conscious |
| of nothing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You can't imagine such a being, can you? The term <I>being</I> |
| doesn't even seem to apply, in some fundamental way you can't quite |
| put your finger on. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Try.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Imagine that you encounter a signal. It is structured, and dense |
| with information. It meets all the criteria of an intelligent |
| transmission. Evolution and experience offer a variety of paths to |
| follow, branch-points in the flowcharts that handle such input. |
| Sometimes these signals come from conspecifics who have useful |
| information to share, whose lives you'll defend according to the |
| rules of kin selection. Sometimes they come from competitors or |
| predators or other inimical entities that must be avoided or |
| destroyed; in those cases, the information may prove of significant |
| tactical value. Some signals may even arise from entities which, |
| while not kin, can still serve as allies or symbionts in mutually |
| beneficial pursuits. You can derive appropriate responses for any of |
| these eventualities, and many others.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You decode the signals, and stumble: |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>I had a great time. I really enjoyed him. Even if he cost twice |
| as much as any other hooker in the dome—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>To fully appreciate Kesey's Quartet—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>They hate us for our freedom—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Pay attention, now—</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Understand.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There are no meaningful translations for these terms. They are |
| needlessly recursive. They contain no usable intelligence, yet they |
| are structured intelligently; there is no chance they could have |
| arisen <I>by</I> chance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way |
| that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort |
| does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume |
| the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. |
| The signal is a virus.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Viruses do not arise from kin, symbionts, or other allies.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The signal is an attack.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And it's coming from right about <I>there</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Now you get it," Sascha said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I shook my head, trying to wrap it around that insane, impossible |
| conclusion. "They're not even <I>hostile</I>." Not even |
| capable of hostility. Just so profoundly alien that they couldn't |
| help but treat human language itself as a form of combat.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| How do you say <I>We come in peace</I> when the very words are an act |
| of war?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That's why they won't talk to us," I realized.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Only if Jukka's right. He may not be." It was James |
| again, still quietly resisting, still unwilling to concede a point |
| that even her other selves had accepted. I could see why. Because |
| if Sarasti was right, scramblers were the <I>norm</I>: evolution |
| across the universe was nothing but the endless proliferation of |
| automatic, organized complexity, a vast arid Turing machine full of |
| self-replicating machinery forever unaware of its own existence. And |
| we—we were the flukes and the fossils. We were the flightless |
| birds lauding our own mastery over some remote island while serpents |
| and carnivores washed up on our shores. Susan James could not bring |
| herself to concede that point—because Susan James, her multiple |
| lives built on the faith that communication resolves all conflict, |
| would then be forced to admit the lie. If Sarasti was right, there |
| was no hope of reconciliation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A memory rose into my mind and stuck there: a man in motion, head |
| bent, mouth twisted into an unrelenting grimace. His eyes focused on |
| one foot, then the other. His legs moved stiffly, carefully. His |
| arms moved not at all. He lurched like a zombie in thrall to rigor |
| mortis.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I knew what it was. Proprioreceptive polyneuropathy, a case study |
| I'd encountered in ConSensus back before Szpindel had died. This was |
| what Pag had once compared me to; a man who had lost his mind. Only |
| self-awareness remained. Deprived of the unconscious sense and |
| subroutines he had always taken for granted, he'd had to focus on |
| each and every step across the room. His body no longer knew where |
| its limbs were or what they were doing. To move at all, to even |
| remain upright, he had to bear constant witness.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There'd been no sound when I'd played that file. There was none now |
| in its recollection. But I swore I could feel Sarasti at my |
| shoulder, peering into my memories. I swore I heard him speak in my |
| mind like a schizophrenic hallucination:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>This is the best that consciousness can do,</I> <I>when left on |
| its own.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Right answer," I murmured. "Wrong <I>question</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Stretch, remember? When you asked it which objects were in the |
| window."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And it missed the scrambler." James nodded. "So?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It didn't miss the scrambler. You thought you were asking |
| about the things it <I>saw</I>, the things that <I>existed</I> on the |
| board. Stretch thought you were asking about—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "The things it was <I>aware</I> of," she finished.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "He's right," I whispered. "Oh God. I think he's |
| right."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Hey," James said. "Did you see <I>tha—</I>" |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I never saw what she was pointing at. <I>Theseus</I> slammed its |
| eyelids shut and started howling.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Graduation came nine days early.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We didn't see the shot. Whatever gun port <I>Rorschach</I> had |
| opened was precisely eclipsed on three fronts: the lab-hab hid it |
| from <I>Theseus</I>, and two gnarled extrusions of the artefact |
| itself hid it from each of the gun emplacements. A bolus of |
| incendiary plasma shot from that blind spot like a thrown punch; it |
| had split the inflatable wide open before the first alarm went up.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Alarms chased us aft. We launched ourselves down the spine through |
| the bridge, through the crypt, past hatches and crawlspaces, fleeing |
| the surface for any refuge with more than a hand's-breadth between |
| skin and sky. Burrowing. ConSensus followed us back, its windows |
| warping and sliding across struts and conduits and the concave tunnel |
| of the spine itself. I paid no attention until we were back in the |
| drum, deep in <I>Theseus</I>' belly. Where we could pretend we were |
| safer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Down on the turning deck Bates erupted from the head, tactical |
| windows swirling like ballroom dancers around her. Our own window |
| came to rest on the Commons bulkhead. The hab expanded across that |
| display like a cheap optical illusion: both swelling and shrinking |
| in our sights, that smooth surface billowing towards us while |
| collapsing in on itself. It took me a moment to reconcile the |
| contradiction: something had kicked the hab hard from its far side, |
| sent it careening toward us in a slow, majestic tumble. Something |
| had <I>opened</I> the hab, spilled its atmosphere and left its |
| elastic skin drawing in on itself like a deflating balloon. The |
| impact site swung into view as we watched, a scorched flaccid mouth |
| trailing tenuous wisps of frozen spittle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Our guns were firing. They shot nonconducting slugs that would not |
| be turned aside by electromagnetic trickery—invisibly dark and |
| distant to human eyes but I saw them through the tactical crosshairs |
| of the firing robots, watched them sew twin dotted blackbodied arcs |
| across the heavens. The streams converged as the guns tracked their |
| targets, closed on two attenuate throwing stars fleeing spread-eagled |
| through the void, their faces turned to <I>Rorschach</I> like flowers |
| to the sun.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The guns cut them to pieces before they'd even made it half way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But those shredded pieces kept falling, and suddenly the ground |
| beneath was alive with motion. I zoomed the view: scramblers surged |
| across <I>Rorschach</I>'s hull like an orgy of snakes, naked to |
| space. Some linked arms, one to another to another, built squirming |
| vertebral daisy-chains anchored at one end. They lifted from the |
| hull, waved through the radioactive vacuum like fronds of articulated |
| kelp, reaching—grasping—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Neither Bates nor her machines were stupid. They targeted the |
| interlinked scramblers as ruthlessly as they'd gone after the |
| escapees, and with a much higher total score. But there were simply |
| too many targets, too many fragments snatched in passing. Twice I |
| saw dismembered bits of Stretch and Clench caught by their brethren. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The ruptured hab loomed across ConSensus like a great torn leukocyte. |
| Another alarm buzzed somewhere nearby: proximity alert. Cunningham |
| shot into the drum from somewhere astern, bounced off a cluster of |
| pipes and conduits, grabbed for support. "Holy <I>shit—</I>we |
| are leaving, aren't we? Amanda?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," Sarasti answered from everywhere.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What—" <I>does it fucking </I>take? I caught |
| myself. "Amanda, what if it fires on the ship?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It won't." She didn't take her eyes from her windows. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It can't. If it had spring-loaded any more firepower we'd have |
| seen a change in thermal <I>and </I>microallometry." A |
| false-color landscape rotated between us, its latitudes measured in |
| time, its longitudes in delta-mass. Kilotons rose from that terrain |
| like a range of red mountains. "Huh. Came in just under the |
| noise lim—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti cut her off. "Robert. Susan. EVA."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| James blanched. "<I>What</I>?" Cunningham cried.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Lab module's about to impact," the vampire said. "Salvage |
| the samples. <I>Now</I>." He killed the channel before anyone |
| could argue.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But Cunningham wasn't about to argue. He'd just seen our death |
| sentence commuted: why would Sarasti care about retrieving biopsy |
| samples if he didn't think we stood a chance of escaping with them? |
| The biologist steadied himself, braced towards the forward hatch. |
| "I'm <I>there</I>," he said, shooting into the bow.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I had to admit it. Sarasti's psychology was getting better.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't working on James, though, or Michelle, or—I couldn't |
| quite tell who was on top. "I can't go out there, Siri, it's—<I>I |
| can't go out there</I>…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Just observe</I>. <I>Don't interfere</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The ruptured inflatable collided impotently to starboard and |
| flattened itself against the carapace. We felt nothing. Far away |
| and far too near, the legions thinned across <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| surface. They disappeared through mouths that puckered and dilated |
| and magically closed again in the artefact's hull. The emplacements |
| fired passionlessly at those who remained.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Observe.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The Gang of Four strobed at my side, scared to death.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Don't interfere.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It's okay," I said. "I'll go."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The open airlock was like a dimple in the face of an endless cliff. |
| I looked out from that indentation into the abyss.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This side of <I>Theseus</I> faced away from Big Ben, away from the |
| enemy. The view was still unsettling enough: an endless panorama of |
| distant stars, hard and cold and unwinking. A single, marginally |
| brighter one, shining yellow, still so very far away. Any scant |
| comfort I might have taken from that sight was lost when the sun went |
| out for the briefest instant: a tumbling piece of rock, perhaps. Or |
| one of <I>Rorschach</I>'s shovelnosed entourage.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| One step and I might never stop falling.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I didn't step, and I didn't fall. I squeezed my pistol, jetted |
| gently through the opening, turned. <I>Theseus</I>' carapace curved |
| away from me in all directions. Towards the prow, the sealed |
| observation blister rose above the horizon like a gunmetal sunrise. |
| Further aft a tattered snowdrift peeked across the hull: the edge of |
| the broken labhab.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And past it all, close enough to touch, the endless dark cloudscape |
| of Big Ben: a great roiling wall extending to some flat distant |
| horizon I could barely grasp even in theory. When I focused it was |
| dark and endless shades of gray—but dim, sullen redness teased |
| the corner of my eye when I looked away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Robert?" I brought Cunningham's suit feed to my HUD: a |
| craggy, motionless ice field thrown into high contrast by the light |
| of his helmet. Interference from <I>Rorschach</I>'s magnetosphere |
| washed over the image in waves. "You there?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Pops and crackles. The sound of breath and mumbling against an |
| electrical hum. "Four point three. Four point oh. Three point |
| eight—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Robert?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Three point—<I>shit</I>. What—what are you doing |
| out here, Keeton? Where's the Gang?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I came instead." Another squeeze of the trigger and I was |
| coasting towards the snowscape. <I>Theseus</I>' convex hull rolled |
| past, just within reach. "To give you a hand."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Let's move it then, shall we?" He was passing through a |
| crevice, a scorched and jagged tear in the fabric that folded back at |
| his touch. Struts, broken panels, dead robot arms tangled through |
| the interior of the ice cave like glacial debris; their outlines |
| writhed with static, their shadows leaped and stretched like living |
| things in the sweep of his headlight. "I'm almost—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something that wasn't static moved in his headlight. Something |
| <I>uncoiled</I>, just at the edge of the camera's view.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The feed died.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Suddenly Bates and Sarasti were shouting in my helmet. I tried to |
| brake. My stupid useless legs kicked against vacuum, obeying some |
| ancient brainstem override from a time when all monsters were |
| earthbound, but by the time I remembered to use my trigger finger the |
| labhab was already looming before me. <I>Rorschach</I> reared up |
| behind it in the near distance, vast and malign. Dim green auroras |
| writhed across its twisted surface like sheet lightning. <I>Mouths |
| </I>opened and closed by the hundreds, viscous as bubbling volcanic |
| mud, any one of them large enough to swallow <I>Theseus</I> whole. I |
| barely noticed the flicker of motion just ahead of me, the silent |
| eruption of dark mass from the collapsed inflatable. By the time |
| Cunningham caught my eye he was already on his way, backlit against |
| the ghastly corpselight flickering on <I>Rorschach</I>'s skin.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I thought I saw him waving, but I was wrong. It was only the |
| scrambler wrapped around his body like a desperate lover, moving his |
| arm back and forth while it ran the thrust pistol tethered to his |
| wrist. <I>Bye-bye</I>, that arm seemed to say, <I>and fuck you, |
| Keeton</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I watched for what seemed like forever, but no other part of him |
| moved at all.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Voices, shouting, ordering me back inside. I hardly heard them. I |
| was too dumbfounded by the basic math, trying to make sense of the |
| simplest subtraction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Two scramblers. Stretch and Clench. Both accounted for, shot to |
| pieces before my eyes.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Keeton, do you read? Get back here! Acknowledge!</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I—it can't be," I heard myself say. "There |
| were only two—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Return to the ship immediately. Acknowledge.</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I—acknowledged..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s mouths snapped shut at once, as though holding a |
| deep breath. The artefact began to <I>turn</I>, ponderously, a |
| continent changing course. It receded, slowly at first, picking up |
| speed, turning tail and running. <I>How odd</I>, I thought. <I>Maybe |
| it's more afraid than </I>we<I> are</I>...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But then <I>Rorschach</I> blew us a kiss. I saw it burst from deep |
| within the forest, ethereal and incandescent. It shot across the |
| heavens and splashed against the small of <I>Theseus</I>' back, |
| making a complete and utter fool of Amanda Bates. The skin of our |
| ship <I>flowed</I> there, and opened like a mouth, and congealled in |
| a soundless frozen scream.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; margin-top: 1in; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">You |
| cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">Einstein</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I have no idea whether the scrambler made it back home with its |
| hard-won prize. There was so much lost distance to make up, even if |
| the emplacements didn't pick it off en route. Cunningham's pistol |
| might have run out of fuel. And who knew how long those creatures |
| could survive in vacuum anyway? Maybe there'd been no real hope of |
| success, maybe that scrambler was dead from the moment it had gambled |
| on staying behind. I never found out. It had dwindled and vanished |
| from my sight long before <I>Rorschach</I> dove beneath the clouds |
| and disappeared in turn. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There had always been three, of course. Stretch, and Clench<SPAN LANG="en-CA">, |
| </SPAN>and the half-forgotten microwaved remains of a scrambler |
| killed by an uppity grunt—kept on ice next to its living |
| brethren, within easy reach of Cunningham's teleops. I tried to |
| dredge half-glimpsed details from memory, after the fact: had both |
| of those escapees been spheres, or had one been flattened along one |
| axis? Had they thrashed, waved their limbs the way some panicky |
| human might with no ground beneath him? Or had one, perhaps, coasted |
| lifeless and ballistic until our guns destroyed the evidence?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| At this point, it didn't really matter. What mattered was that at |
| long last, everyone was on the same page. Blood had been drawn, war |
| declared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And <I>Theseus</I> was paralysed from the waist down.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s parting shot had punched through the carapace at |
| the base of the spine. It had just missed the ramscoop and the |
| telematter assembly. It might have taken out Fab if it hadn't spent |
| so many joules burning through the carapace, but barring some |
| temporary pulse effects it left all critical systems pretty much |
| operational. All it had done was weaken <I>Theseus</I>' backbone |
| enough to make it snap in two should we ever burn hard enough to |
| break orbit. The ship would be able to repair that damage, but not |
| in time.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If it had been luck it would have been remarkable.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And now, its quarry disabled, <I>Rorschach</I> had vanished. It had |
| everything it needed from us, for the moment at least. It had |
| information: all the experiences and insights encoded in the |
| salvaged limbs of its martyred spies. If Stretch-or-Clench's gamble |
| had paid off it even had a specimen of its own now, which all things |
| considered we could hardly begrudge it. And so now it lurked |
| invisibly in the depths, resting perhaps. Recharging. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But it would be back.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> lost weight for the final round. We shut down the |
| drum in a token attempt to reduce our vulnerable allotment of moving |
| parts. The Gang of Four—uncommanded, unneeded, the very reason |
| for their existence ripped away—retreated into some inner |
| dialog to which other flesh was unwelcome. She floated in the |
| observatory, her eyes closed as tightly as the leaded lids around |
| her. I could not tell who was in control.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I guessed. "Michelle?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Siri—" Susan. "Just go."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates floated near the floor of the drum, windows arrayed externally |
| across bulkhead and conference table. "What can I do?" I |
| asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She didn't look up. "Nothing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I watched. Bates counted skimmers in one window—mass, |
| inertia, any of a dozen variables that would prove far too constant |
| should any of those shovelnosed missiles come at our throat. They |
| had finally noticed us. Their chaotic electron-dance was shifting |
| now, hundreds of thousands of colossal sledgehammers in sudden flux, |
| reweaving into some ominous dynamic that hadn't yet settled into |
| anything we could predict.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| In another window <I>Rorschach</I>'s vanishing act replayed on |
| endless loop: a radar image receding deep into the maelstrom, fading |
| beneath gaseous teratonnes of radio static. It might still be an |
| orbit, of sorts. Judging by that last glimpsed trajectory <I>Rorschach</I> |
| might well be swinging around Ben's core now, passing through crushed |
| layers of methane and monoxide that would flatten <I>Theseus</I> into |
| smoke. Maybe it didn't even stop there; maybe <I>Rorschach</I> could |
| pass unharmed even through those vaster, deeper pressures that made |
| iron and hydrogen run liquid.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We didn't know. We only knew that it would be back in a little under |
| two hours, assuming it maintained its trajectory and survived the |
| depths. And of course, it <I>would</I> survive. You can't kill the |
| thing under the bed. You can only keep it outside the covers.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And only for a while.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A thumbnail inset caught my eye with a flash of color. At my command |
| it grew into a swirling soap bubble, incongruously beautiful, a |
| blue-shifted coruscating rainbow of blown glass. I didn't recognize |
| it for a moment: Big Ben, rendered in some prismatic false-color |
| enhance I'd never seen before. I grunted softly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates glanced up. "Oh. Beautiful, isn't it?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What's the spectrum?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Longwave stuff. Visible red, infra, down a ways. Good for |
| heat traces."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Visible red?" There wasn't any to speak of; mostly cool |
| plasma fractals in a hundred shades of jade and sapphire.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Quadrochromatic palette," Bates told me. "Like what |
| a cat might see. Or a vampire." She managed a half-hearted |
| wave at the rainbow bubble. "Sarasti sees something like that |
| every time he looks outside. If he ever looks outside."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You'd think he'd have mentioned it," I murmured. It was |
| gorgeous, a holographic ornament. Perhaps even <I>Rorschach</I> |
| might be a work of art through eyes like these...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't think they parse sight like we do." Bates opened |
| another window. Mundane graphs and contour plots sprang from the |
| table. "They don't even go to Heaven, from what I hear. VR |
| doesn't work on them, they— see the pixels, or something."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What if he's right?" I asked. I told myself that I was |
| only looking for a tactical assessment, an official opinion for the |
| official record. But my words came out doubtful and frightened.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She paused. For a moment I wondered if she, too, had finally lost |
| patience with the sight of me. But she only looked up, and stared |
| off into some enclosed distance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What if he's right," she repeated, and pondered the |
| question that lay beneath: <I>what can we </I>do<I>?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We could engineer ourselves back into nonsentience, perhaps. |
| Might improve our odds in the long run." She looked at me, a |
| rueful sort of half-smile at the corner of her mouth. "But I |
| guess that wouldn't be much of a win, would it? What's the |
| difference between being dead, and just not knowing you're alive?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I finally saw it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| How long would it take an enemy tactician to discern Bates' mind |
| behind the actions of her troops on the battlefield? How long before |
| the obvious logic came clear? In any combat situation, this woman |
| would naturally draw the greatest amount of enemy fire: take off the |
| head, kill the body. But Amanda Bates wasn't just a head: she was a |
| bottleneck, and <I>her </I>body would not suffer from a decapitation |
| strike. Her death would only let her troops off the leash. How much |
| more deadly would those grunts be, once every battlefield reflex |
| didn't have to pass through some interminable job stack waiting for |
| the rubber stamp?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Szpindel had had it all wrong. Amanda Bates wasn't a sop to |
| politics, her role didn't deny the obsolescence of Human oversight at |
| all. Her role <I>depended </I>on it. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She was more cannon fodder than I. She always had been. And I had |
| to admit: after generations of generals who'd lived for the glory of |
| the mushroom cloud, it was a pretty effective strategy for souring |
| warmongers on gratuitous violence. In Amanda Bates' army, picking a |
| fight meant standing on the battlefield with a bull's-eye on your |
| chest.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No wonder she'd been so invested in peaceful alternatives.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'm sorry," I said softly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She shrugged. "It's not over yet. Just the first round." |
| She took a long, deep breath, and turned back to her study of |
| slingshot mechanics. "<I>Rorschach</I> wouldn't have tried so |
| hard to scare us off in the first place if we couldn't touch it, |
| right?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I swallowed. "Right."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So there's still a chance." She nodded to herself. |
| "There's still a chance."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The demon arranged his pieces for the end game. He didn't have many |
| left. The soldier he placed in the bridge. He packed obsolete |
| linguists and diplomats back in their coffin, out of sight and out of |
| the way. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He called the jargonaut to his quarters— and although it would |
| be the first time I'd seen him since the attack, his summons carried |
| not the slightest trace of doubt that I would obey. I did. I came |
| on command, and saw that he had surrounded himself with faces.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Every last one of them was screaming.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There was no sound. The disembodied holograms floated in silent |
| tiers around the bubble, each contorted into a different expression |
| of pain. They were being tortured, these faces; half a dozen real |
| ethnicities and twice as many hypothetical ones, skin tones ranging |
| from charcoal to albino, brows high and slanted, noses splayed or |
| pointed, jaws receding or prognathous. Sarasti had called the entire |
| hominid tree into existence around him, astonishing in their range of |
| features, terrifying in their consistency of expression.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A sea of tortured faces, rotating in slow orbits around my vampire |
| commander.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My God, what <I>is</I> this?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Statistics." Sarasti seemed focused on a flayed Asian |
| child. "<I>Rorschach</I>'s growth allometry over a two-week |
| period."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They're <I>faces</I>…"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded, turning his attention to a woman with no eyes. "Skull |
| diameter scales to total mass. Mandible length scales to EM |
| transparency at one Angstrom. One hundred thirteen facial dimensions, |
| each presenting a different variable. Principle-component |
| combinations present as multifeature aspect ratios." He turned |
| to face me, his naked gleaming eyes just slightly sidecast. "You'd |
| be surprised how much gray matter is dedicated to the analysis of |
| facial imagery. Shame to waste it on anything as—counterintuitive |
| as residual plots or contingency tables."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I felt my jaw clenching. "And the <I>expressions</I>? What do |
| <I>they</I> represent?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Software customizes output for user."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| An agonized gallery pled for mercy on all sides.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I <I>am</I> wired for hunting," he reminded gently<I>.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "And you think I don't know that," I said after a moment. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He shrugged, disconcertingly human. "You ask."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why am I here, Jukka? You want to teach me another <I>object |
| lesson</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "To discuss our next move."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What move? We can't even run away."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No." He shook his head, baring filed teeth in something |
| approaching regret.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why did we wait so long?" Suddenly my sullen defiance had |
| evaporated. I sounded like a child, frightened and pleading. "Why |
| didn't we just take it on when we first got here, when it was |
| <I>weaker</I>…?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "We need to learn things. For next time."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Next time? I thought <I>Rorschach</I> was a dandelion seed. I |
| thought it just—washed up here—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "By chance. But every dandelion is a clone. Their seeds are |
| legion." Another smile, not remotely convincing— "And |
| maybe it takes more than one try for the placental mammals to conquer |
| Australia."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It'll annihilate us. It doesn't even need those spitballs, it |
| could pulverize us with one of those scramjets. In an instant."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It doesn't want to."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How do you <I>know</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "They need to learn things too. They want us intact. Improves |
| our odds."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not enough. We can't win."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| This was his cue. This was the point at which Uncle Predator would |
| smile at my naiveté, and take me into his confidence. <I>Of |
| </I>course<I> we're armed to the teeth</I>, he would say. <I>Do you |
| think we'd come all this way, face such a vast unknown, without the |
| means to defend ourselves? Now, at last, I can reveal that shielding |
| and weaponry account for over half the ship's mass…</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was his <I>cue</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No," he said. "We can't win."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "So we just sit here. We just wait to die for the next—the |
| next sixty-eight minutes..."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti shook his head. "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—" I began.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Oh," I finished.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because of course, we had just topped up our antimatter reserves. |
| <I>Theseus</I> was not equipped with weapons. <I>Theseus</I> <I>was</I> |
| the weapon. And we were, in fact, going to sit here for the next |
| sixty-eight minutes, waiting to die.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But we were going to take <I>Rorschach</I> with us when we did.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti said nothing. I wondered what he saw, looking at me. I |
| wondered if there actually <I>was</I> a Jukka Sarasti behind those |
| eyes to see, if his insights—always ten steps ahead of our own— |
| hailed not so much from superior analytical facilities as from the |
| timeworn truth that <I>it takes one to know one</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Whose side, I wondered, would an automaton take?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You have other things to worry about," he said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He moved towards me; I swear, all those agonized faces followed him |
| with their eyes. He studied me for a moment, the flesh crinkling |
| around his eyes. Or maybe some mindless algorithm merely processed |
| visual input, correlated aspect ratios and facial tics, fed |
| everything to some output subroutine with no more awareness than a |
| stats program. Maybe there was no more spark in this creature's face |
| than there was in all the others, silently screaming in his wake.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Is Susan afraid of you?" the thing before me asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Su—why should she be?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She has four conscious entities in her head. She's four times |
| more sentient than you. Doesn't that make you a threat?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No, of course not."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Then why should you feel threatened by me?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And suddenly I didn't care any more. I laughed out loud, with |
| minutes to live and nothing to lose. "<I>Why</I>? Maybe |
| because you're my natural enemy, you fucker. Maybe because I <I>know</I> |
| you, and you can't even <I>look</I> at one of us without flexing your |
| claws. Maybe because you nearly ripped my fucking hand off and raped |
| me for no good reason—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I can imagine what it's like," he said quietly. "Please |
| don't make me do it again."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I fell instantly silent.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I know your race and mine are never on the best of terms." |
| There was a cold smile in his voice if not on his face. "But I |
| do only what you force me to. You <I>rationalize</I>, Keeton. You |
| <I>defend</I>. You reject unpalatable truths, and if you can't |
| reject them outright you trivialize them. Incremental evidence is |
| never enough for you. You hear rumors of Holocaust; you dismiss |
| them. You see evidence of genocide; you insist it can't be so bad. |
| Temperatures rise, glaciers melt—species <I>die</I>—and |
| you blame sunspots and volcanoes. Everyone is like this, but you |
| most of all. You and your Chinese Room. You turn incomprehension |
| into mathematics, you reject the truth without even knowing what it |
| is."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It served me well enough." I wondered at the ease with |
| which I had put my life into the past tense.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes, if your purpose is only to <I>transmit</I>. Now you have |
| to <I>convince</I>. You have to <I>believe</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| There were implications there I didn't dare to hope for. "Are |
| you saying—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can't afford to let the truth <I>trickle</I> through. Can't |
| give you the chance to shore up your rationales and your defenses. |
| They must fall completely. You must be <I>inundated</I>. Shattered. |
| Genocide's impossible to deny when you're buried up to your neck in |
| dismembered bodies." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He'd <I>played</I> me. All this time. <I>Preconditioning</I> me, |
| turning my topology inside-out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd known something was going on. I just hadn't understood <I>what</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I'd have seen right through it," I said, "if you |
| hadn't made me get involved."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You might even read it off me directly."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>That's</I> why you—" I shook my head. "I |
| thought that was because we were <I>meat</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "That too," Sarasti admitted, and looked right at me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| For the first time, I looked right back. And felt a shock of |
| recognition.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I still wonder why I never saw it before. For all those years I |
| remembered the thoughts and feelings of some different, younger |
| person, some remnant of the boy my parents had hacked out of my head |
| to make room for me. He'd been <I>alive</I>. His world had been |
| vibrant. And though I could call up the memories of that other |
| consciousness, I could barely feel anything within the constraints of |
| my own.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Perhaps <I>dreamstate</I> wasn't such a bad word for it…</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Like to hear a vampire folk tale?" Sarasti asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Vampires have folk tales?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He took it for a <I>yes</I>. "A laser is assigned to find the |
| darkness. Since it lives in a room without doors, or windows, or any |
| other source of light, it thinks this will be easy. But everywhere |
| it turns it sees brightness. Every wall, every piece of furniture it |
| points at is brightly lit. Eventually it concludes there <I>is</I> |
| no darkness, that light is everywhere."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What the hell are you talking about?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Amanda is not planning a mutiny." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What? You know about—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She doesn't even want to. Ask her if you like."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No—I—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You value objectivity."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It was so obvious I didn't bother answering.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He nodded as if I had. "Synthesists can't have opinions of |
| their own. So when you feel one, it must be someone else's. The |
| <I>crew</I> holds you in contempt. <I>Amanda </I>wants me relieved |
| of command. Half of <I>us</I> is <I>you</I>. I think the word is |
| <I>project</I>. Although,"—he cocked his head a bit to |
| one side—"lately you improve. Come."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Where?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Shuttle bay. Time to do your job."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "My—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Survive and bear witness."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "A drone—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can deliver the data—assuming nothing fries its memory |
| before it gets away. It can't <I>convince</I> anyone. It can't |
| counter rationalizations and denials. It can't <I>matter</I>. And |
| vampires—" he paused—"have poor communications |
| skills." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It should have been cause for petty, selfish rejoicing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "It all comes down to me," I said. "That's what |
| you're saying. I'm a fucking stenographer, and it's all on me."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yes. Forgive me for that."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Forgive you?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti waved his hand. All faces save two disappeared.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I don't know what I'm doing."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The news bloomed across ConSensus a few seconds before Bates called |
| it aloud: Thirteen skimmers had not reappeared from behind Big Ben |
| on schedule. Sixteen. Twenty-eight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And counting.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked to himself as he and Bates played catch-up. Tactical |
| filled with luminous multicolored threads, a tangle of revised |
| projections as intricate as art. The threads wrapped Ben like a |
| filamentous cocoon; <I>Theseus</I> was a naked speck in the middle |
| distance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I expected any number of those lines to skewer us like needles |
| through a bug. Surprisingly, none did; but the projections only |
| extended twenty-five hours into the future, and were reliable for |
| only half that. Not even Sarasti and the Captain could look so far |
| ahead with that many balls in the air. It was something, though, the |
| faintest silver lining: that all these high-speed behemoths couldn't |
| simply reach out and swat us without warning. Evidently they still |
| had to ease into the curve.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| After <I>Rorschach</I>'s dive, I'd been starting to think the laws of |
| physics didn't apply.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The trajectories were close enough, though. At least three skimmers |
| would be passing within a hundred kilometers on their next orbits.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti reached for his injector, the blood rising in his face. |
| "Time to go. We refit <I>Charybdis</I> while you're sulking." |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He held the hypo to his throat and shot up. I stared at ConSensus, |
| caught by that bright shifting web like a moth by a streetlight.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Now</I>, Siri."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He pushed me from his quarters. I sailed into the passageway, |
| grabbed a convenient rung—and stopped.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The spine was alive with grunts, patrolling the airspace, standing |
| guard over the fab plants and shuttle 'locks, clinging like giant |
| insects to the rungs of unrolling spinal ladders. Slowly, silently, |
| the spine itself was <I>stretching</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It could do that, I remembered. Its corrugations flexed and relaxed |
| like muscle, it could grow up to two hundred meters to accommodate |
| any late-breaking need for a bigger hanger or more lab space.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Or more infantry. <I>Theseus</I> was increasing the size of the |
| battlefield.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Come." The vampire turned aft.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates broke in from up front. "Something's happening."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| An emergency handpad, geckoed to the expanding bulkhead, slid past to |
| one side. Sarasti grabbed it and tapped commands. Bates' feed |
| appeared on the bulkhead: a tiny chunk of Big Ben, an EM-enhanced |
| equatorial quadrant only a few thousand klicks on a side. The |
| clouds boiled down there, a cyclonic knot of turbulence swirling |
| almost too fast for realtime. The overlay described charged |
| particles, bound in a deep Parker spiral. It spoke of great mass, |
| rising.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti clicked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "DTI?" Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Optical only." Sarasti took my arm and dragged me |
| effortlessly astern. The display paced us along the bulkhead: seven |
| skimmers shot from the clouds as I watched, a ragged circle of |
| scramjets screaming red-hot into space. ConSensus plotted their |
| paths in an instant; luminous arcs rose around our ship like the bars |
| of a cage.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> shuddered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>We've been hit</I>, I thought. Suddenly the spine's plodding |
| expansion cranked into overdrive; the pleated wall lurched and |
| accelerated, streaming past my outstretched fingers as the closed |
| hatch receded up ahead—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —receded <I>overhead</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The walls weren't moving at all. We were <I>falling</I>, to the |
| sudden strident bleating of an alarm.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Something nearly yanked my arm from its socket: Sarasti had reached |
| out with one hand and caught a rung, reached with his other and |
| caught me before we'd both been flattened against the Fab plant. We |
| dangled. I must have weighed two hundred kilograms; the floor |
| shuddered ten meters below my feet. The ship groaned around us. The |
| spine filled with the screech of torquing metal. Bates' grunts |
| clung to its walls with clawed feet. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I reached for the ladder. The ladder pulled away: the ship was |
| bending in the middle and <I>down </I>had started to climb the walls. |
| Sarasti and I swung towards the center of the spine like a |
| daisy-chain pendulum. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Bates! James!</I>" The vampire roared. His grip on |
| my wrist trembled, slipping. I strained for the ladder, swung, |
| caught it. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Susan James has barricaded herself in the bridge and shut down |
| autonomic overrides." An unfamiliar voice, flat and affectless. |
| "She has initiated an unauthorized burn. I have begun a |
| controlled reactor shutdown; be advised that the main drive will be |
| offline for at least twenty-seven minutes."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>The ship</I>, I realized, its voice raised calmly above the alarm. |
| The Captain itself. On Public Address.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>That</I> was unusual. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Bridge!" Sarasti barked. "Open channel!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Someone was shouting up there. There were words, but I couldn't make |
| them out.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Without warning, Sarasti let go.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He dropped obliquely in a blur. Aft and opposite, the bulkhead |
| waited to swat him like an insect. In half a second both his legs |
| would be shattered, if the impact didn't kill him outright—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But suddenly we were weightless again, and Jukka |
| Sarasti—purple-faced, stiff-limbed— was foaming at the |
| mouth.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Reactor offline," the Captain reported. Sarasti bounced |
| off the wall.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>He's having a seizure</I>, I realized.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I released the ladder and pushed astern. <I>Theseus</I> swung |
| lopsidedly around me. Sarasti convulsed in mid-air; clicks and |
| hisses and choking sounds stuttered from his mouth. His eyes were so |
| wide they seemed lidless. His pupils were mirror-red pinpoints. The |
| flesh twitched across his face as though trying to crawl off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ahead and behind, battlebots held their position and ignored us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Bates</I>!" I yelled up the spine. "We need |
| help!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Angles, everywhere. Seams on the shield plates. Sharp shadows and |
| protrusions on the surface of every drone. A two-by-three matrix of |
| insets, bordered in black, floating over the main ConSensus display: |
| two big interlinked crosses right in front of where Sarasti had been |
| hanging.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>This can't be happening. He just took his antiEuclideans. I saw |
| him. Unless...</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Someone had spiked Sarasti's drugs.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Bates</I>!" She should be linked into the grunts, they |
| should have leapt forward at the first sign of trouble. They should |
| be dragging my commander to the infirmary by now. They waited |
| stolid and immobile. I stared at the nearest: "Bates, you |
| there?" And then—in case she wasn't—I spoke to the |
| grunt directly. "Are you autonomous? <I>Do you take verbal |
| orders</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| On all sides the robots watched; the Captain just laughed at me, its |
| voice posing as an alarm.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Infirmary</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I pushed. Sarasti's arms flailed randomly against my head and |
| shoulders. He tumbled forward and sideways, hit the moving ConSensus |
| display dead center, bounced away up the spine. I kicked off in his |
| wake—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and glimpsed something from the corner of my eye—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —and turned—</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —And dead center of ConSensus, <I>Rorschach</I> erupted from |
| Ben's seething face like a breaching whale. It wasn't just the |
| EM-enhance: the thing was <I>glowing</I>, deep angry red. Enraged, |
| it hurled itself into space, big as a mountain range.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Fuck fuck fuck.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> lurched. The lights flickered, went out, came back on |
| again. The turning bulkhead cuffed me from behind. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Backups engaged," the Captain said calmly.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Captain! Sarasti's down!" I kicked off the nearest |
| ladder, bumped into a grunt and headed forward after the vampire. |
| "Bates isn't—what do I do?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Nav offline. Starboard afferents offline."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It wasn't even talking to me, I realized. Maybe this wasn't the |
| Captain at all. Maybe it was pure reflex: a dialog tree, spouting |
| public-service announcements. Maybe <I>Theseus</I> had already been |
| lobotomized. Maybe this was only her brain stem talking.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Darkness again. Then flickering light.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If the Captain was gone, we were screwed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I gave Sarasti another push. The alarm bleated on. The drum was |
| twenty meters ahead; BioMed was just the other side of that closed |
| hatch. The hatch had been open before, I remembered. Someone had |
| shut it in the last few minutes. Fortunately <I>Theseus</I> had no |
| locks on her doors.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Unless the Gang barricaded it before they took the bridge... </I> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Strap in, people! We are getting <I>out</I> of here!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Who in hell…?</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The open bridge channel. Susan James, shouting up there. Or <I>someone</I> |
| was; I couldn't quite place the voice...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Ten meters to the drum. <I>Theseus</I> jerked again, slowed her |
| spin. Stabilised.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Somebody start the goddamned reactor</I>! I've only got |
| attitude jets up here!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Susan? Sascha?</I>" I was at the hatch. "Who <I>is</I> |
| that?" I pushed passed Sarasti and reached to open it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| No answer.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not from ConSensus, anyway. I heard a muted <I>hum</I> from behind, |
| saw the ominous shifting of shadows on the bulkhead just a moment too |
| late. I turned in time to see one of the grunts raise a spiky |
| appendage—curved like a scimitar, needle-tipped—over |
| Sarasti's head.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I turned in time to see it plunge into his skull.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I froze. The metal proboscis withdrew, dark and slick. Lateral |
| maxillipeds began nibbling at the base of Sarasti's skull. His |
| pithed corpse wasn't thrashing now; it only trembled, a sack of |
| muscles and motor nerves awash in static. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Bates</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her mutiny was underway. No, <I>their</I> mutiny—Bates and the |
| Gang. I'd known. I'd imagined it. I'd seen it coming. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He hadn't believed me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The lights went out again. The alarm fell silent. ConSensus |
| dwindled to a flickering doodle on the bulkhead and disappeared; I |
| saw something there in that last instant, and refused to process it. |
| I heard breath catch in my throat, felt angular monstrosities |
| advancing through the darkness. Something flared directly ahead, a |
| bright brief staccato in the void. I glimpsed curves and angles in |
| silhouette, <I>staggering</I>. The buzzing crackle of shorting |
| circuitry. Metal objects collided nearby, unseen. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| From behind the crinkle of the drum hatch, opening. A sudden beam of |
| harsh chemical light hit me as I turned, lit the mechanical ranks |
| behind; they simultaneously unclamped from their anchorages and |
| floated free. Their joints clicked in unison like an army stamping |
| to attention</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Keeton!</I>" Bates snapped, sailing through the hatch. |
| "You okay?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The chemlight shone from her forehead. It turned the interior of the |
| spine into a high-contrast mosaic, all pale surfaces and sharp moving |
| shadows. It spilled across the grunt that had killed Sarasti; the |
| robot bounced down the spine, suddenly, mysteriously inert. The |
| light washed across Sarasti's body. The corpse turned slowly on its |
| axis. Spherical crimson beads emerged from its head like drops of |
| water from a leaky faucet. They spread in a winding, widening trail, |
| spot-lit by Bates' headlamp: a spiral arm of dark ruby suns.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I backed away. "You—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She pushed me to one side. "Stay clear of the hatch, unless |
| you're going through." Her eyes were fixed on the ranked |
| drones. "Optical line of sight."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Rows of glassy eyes reflected back at us down the passageway, passing |
| in and out of shadow.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You killed Sarasti!"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Who do you think shut it <I>down</I>, Keeton? The fucker went |
| rogue. I could barely even get it to self-destruct." Her eyes |
| went briefly deep-focus; all down the spine the surviving drones |
| launched into some intricate martial ballet, half-seen in the |
| shifting cone of her headlamp.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Better," Bates said. "They should stay in line now. |
| Assuming we don't get hit with anything too much stronger." |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What <I>is</I> hitting us?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Lightning. EMP." Drones sailed down to Fab and the |
| shuttles, taking strategic positions along the tube. "<I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| putting out one hell of a charge and every time one those skimmers |
| pass between us they <I>arc</I>."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What, at <I>this</I> range? I thought we were—the burn—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Sent us in the wrong direction. We're inbound."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Three grunts floated close enough to touch. They drew beads on the |
| open drum hatch. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She said she was trying to <I>escape</I>—" I |
| remembered.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "She fucked up."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not by <I>that</I> much. She couldn't have." We were all |
| rated for manual piloting. Just in case.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Not the Gang," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "But—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I think there's someone new in there now. Bunch of submodules |
| wired together and woke up somehow, I don't know. But whatever's in |
| charge, I think it's just panicking."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Stuttering brightness on all sides. The spinal lightstrips flickered |
| and finally held steady, at half their usual brightness.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> coughed static and spoke: "ConSensus is offline. |
| Reac—" |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The voice faded.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>ConSensus</I>, I remembered as Bates turned to head back upstream.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "I saw something," I said. "Before ConSensus went |
| out."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Yeah."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Was that—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She paused at the hatch. "Yeah."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I'd seen scramblers. Hundreds of them, sailing naked through the |
| void, their arms spread wide. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Some of their arms, anyway. "They were carrying—"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Bates nodded. "Weapons." Her eyes flickered to some |
| unseen distance for a moment. "First wave headed for the front |
| end. Blister and forward lock, I think. Second wave's aft." |
| She shook her head. "Huh. I would have done it the other way |
| around."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "How far?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Far?" Bates smiled faintly. "They're already on the |
| hull, Siri. We're engaging."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What do I do? <I>What do I do?</I>"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Her eyes stared past me, and widened. She opened her mouth.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| A hand clamped on my shoulder from behind and spun me around.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti. His dead eyes stared from a skull split like a spiked |
| melon. Globules of coagulating blood clung to his hair and skin like |
| engorged ticks. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Go with him," Bates said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti grunted and clicked. There were no words. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "What—" I began.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Now.</I> That's an order." Bates turned back to the |
| hatch. "We'll cover you."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The shuttle. "You too."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "No."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why not? They can fight better <I>without</I> you, you said |
| that yourself! What's the <I>point</I>?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Can't leave yourself a back door, Keeton. Defeats the whole |
| purpose." She allowed herself a small, sad smile. "They've |
| breached. Go."</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| She was gone, fresh alarms rising in her wake. Far towards the bow I |
| heard the crinkle of emergency bulkheads snapping shut.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti's undead carcass gurgled and pushed me down the spine. Four |
| more grunts slid smoothly past and took up position behind us. I |
| looked over my shoulder in time to see the vampire pull the handpad |
| from the wall. But it wasn't Sarasti at all, of course. It was the |
| Captain—whatever was left of the Captain, this far into the |
| fight—commandeering a peripheral interface for its own use. |
| The optical port sprouted conspicuously from the back of Sarasti's |
| neck, where the cable used to go in; I remembered the drone's |
| maxillipeds, chewing.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The sound of weapons fire and ricochets rose behind us.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The corpse typed one-handed as we moved. I wondered briefly why it |
| just didn't <I>talk</I> before my gaze flickered back to the spike in |
| his brain: Sarasti's speech centers must be mush.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Why did you kill him?" I said. A whole new alarm started |
| up, way back in the drum. A sudden <I>breeze</I> tugged me backward |
| for a moment, dissipated in the next second with a distant clang.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The corpse held out the handpad, configured for keys and a text |
| display: Seizng. Cldnt cntrl.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| We were at the shuttle locks. Robot soldiers let us pass, their |
| attention elsewhere.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| U go, the Captain said.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Someone screamed in the distance. Way off up the spine, the drum |
| hatch slammed shut; I turned and saw a pair of distant grunts welding |
| the seal. They seemed to move faster now than they ever had before. |
| Maybe it was only my imagination.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The starboard shuttle lock slid back. <I>Charybdis</I>' interior |
| lights winked on, spilling brightness into the passageway; the |
| spine's emergency lighting seemed even dimmer in contrast. I peered |
| through the opening. There was almost no cabin space left—just |
| a single open coffin jammed between coolant and fuel tanks and |
| massive retrofitted shockpads. <I>Charybdis</I> had been refitted |
| for high-G and long distance.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti's corpse urged me on from behind. I turned and faced it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "Was it <I>ever</I> him?" I asked.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Go.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "<I>Tell me</I>. Did he ever speak for himself? Did he decide |
| <I>anything</I> on his own? Were we ever following <I>his </I>orders, |
| or was it just you all along?"</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Sarasti's undead eyes stared glassy and uncomprehending. His fingers |
| jerked on the handpad.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| U dislke ordrs frm mchnes. Happier ths way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I let it strap me in and close the lid. I lay there in the dark, |
| feeling my body lurch and sway as the shuttle slid into its launch |
| slot. I withstood the sudden silence as the docking clamps let go, |
| the jerk of acceleration that spat me hard into the vacuum, the |
| ongoing thrust that pushed against my chest like a soft mountain. |
| Around me the shuttle trembled in the throes of a burn that far |
| exceeded its normative specs.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| My inlays came back online. Suddenly I could see <I>outside</I> if I |
| wanted. I could see what was happening behind me.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I chose not to, deliberately and fervently, and looked anyway.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> was dwindling by then, even on tactical. She listed |
| down the well, wobbling toward some enemy rendezvous that must have |
| been intentional, some last-second maneuver to get her payload as |
| close to target as possible. <I>Rorschach</I> rose to meet her, its |
| gnarled spiky arms <I>uncoiling</I>, spreading as if in anticipation |
| of an embrace. But it was the backdrop, not the players, that stole |
| the tableau: the face of Big Ben roiling in my rearview, a seething |
| cyclonic backdrop filling the window. Magnetic contours wound |
| spring-tight on the overlay; <I>Rorschach</I> was drawing all of |
| Ben's magnetosphere around itself like a bright swirling cloak, |
| twisting it into a concentrated knot that grew and brightened and |
| bulged outward...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Like a torsion flare from an L-class dwarf,</I> my commander had |
| said once, <I>but we should see anything big enough to generate that |
| effect and the sky's dark on that bearing. IAU calls it a |
| statistical artefact.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| As, in fact, it had been. An impact splash perhaps, or the bright |
| brief bellow of some great energy source rebooting after a million |
| years of dormancy. Much like this one: a solar flare, with no sun |
| beneath it. A magnetic cannon ten thousand times stronger than |
| nature gave it any right to be.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Both sides drew their weapons. I don't know which fired first, or |
| even if it mattered: how many tonnes of antimatter would it take to |
| match something that could squeeze the power of a sun from a gas ball |
| barely wider than Jupiter? Was <I>Rorschach</I> also resigned to |
| defeat, had each side opted for a kamikaze strike on the other?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I don't know. Big Ben got in the way just minutes before the |
| explosion. That's probably why I'm still alive. Ben stood between |
| me and that burning light like a coin held against the sun.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Theseus</I> sent everything it could, until the last microsecond. |
| Every recorded moment of hand-to-hand combat, every last countdown, |
| every last soul. All the moves and all the vectors. I have that |
| telemetry. I can break it down into any number of shapes, continuous |
| or discrete. I can transform the topology, rotate it and compress it |
| and serve it up in dialects that any ally might be able to use. |
| Perhaps Sarasti was right, perhaps some of it is vital.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I don't know what any of it means.</P> |
|
|
| <br><br><br><a name="Charybdis"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a><br><br><br> |
|
|
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Charybdis</H2> |
|
|
| <br><br><br> |
|
|
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt">"Species |
| used to go extinct. Now they go on hiatus."</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; text-align:right;line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| —<FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">Deborah |
| MacLennan, <I>Tables of our Reconstruction</I></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| "You poor guy," Chelsea said as we went our separate ways. |
| "Sometimes I don't think you'll <I>ever</I> be lonely." At |
| the time I wondered why she sounded so sad.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Now, I only wish she'd been right.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I know this hasn't been a seamless narrative. I've had to shatter |
| the story and string its fragments out along a death lasting decades. |
| I live for only an hour of every ten thousand now, you see. I wish |
| I didn't have to. If only I could sleep the whole way back, avoid |
| the agony of these brief time-lapsed resurrections.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If only I wouldn't die in my sleep if I tried. But living bodies |
| glitter with a lifetime's accumulation of embedded radioisotopes, |
| brilliant little shards that degrade cellular machinery at the |
| molecular level. It's not usually a problem. Living cells repair |
| the damage as fast as it occurs. But my undead ones let those errors |
| accumulate over time, and the journey home takes so much longer than |
| the trip out: I lie in stasis and <I>corrode</I>. So the onboard |
| kick-starts me every now and then to give my flesh the chance to |
| stitch itself back together.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Occasionally it talks to me, recites system stats, updates me on any |
| chatter from back home. Mostly, though, it leaves me alone with my |
| thoughts and the machinery ticking away where my left hemisphere used |
| to be. So I talk to myself, dictate history and opinion from real |
| hemisphere to synthetic one: bright brief moments of awareness, long |
| years of oblivious decay between. Maybe the whole exercise is |
| pointless from the start, maybe no one's even listening. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It doesn't matter. This is what I <I>do</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So there you have it: a memoir told from meat to machinery. A tale |
| told to myself, for lack of someone else to take an interest.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Anyone with half a brain could tell it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I got a letter from Dad today. General delivery, he called it. I |
| think that was a joke, in deference to my lack of known address. He |
| just threw it omnidirectionally into the ether and hoped it would |
| wash over me, wherever I was.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| It's been almost fourteen years now. You lose track of such things |
| out here.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Helen's dead. Heaven—malfunctioned, apparently. Or was |
| sabotaged. Maybe the Realists finally pulled it off. I doubt it, |
| though. Dad seemed to think someone else was responsible. He didn't |
| offer up any details. Maybe he didn't know any. He spoke uneasily |
| of increasing unrest back home. Maybe someone leaked my communiqués |
| about <I>Rorschach</I>; maybe people drew the obvious conclusion when |
| our postcards stopped arriving. They don't know how the story ended. |
| The lack of closure must be driving them crazy.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I got the sense there was something else, something my father |
| didn't dare speak aloud. Maybe it's just my imagination; I thought |
| he even sounded troubled by the news that the birth rate was rising |
| again, which should be cause for celebration after a generation in |
| decline. If my Chinese Room was still in proper working order I'd |
| <I>know</I>, I'd be able to parse it down to the punctuation. But |
| Sarasti battered my tools and left them barely functional. I'm as |
| blind now as any baseline. All I have is uncertainty and suspicion, |
| and the creeping dread that even with my best tricks in tatters, I |
| might be reading him right.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I think he's warning me to stay away.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| He also said he loved me. He said he missed Helen, that she was |
| sorry for something she did before I was born, some indulgence or |
| omission that carried developmental consequences. He rambled. I |
| don't know what he was talking about. So much power my father must |
| have had, to be able to authorize such a broadcast and yet waste so |
| much of it on feelings.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Oh God, how I treasure it. I treasure every word. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I fall along an endless futile parabola, all gravity and inertia. |
| <I>Charybdis</I> couldn't reacquire the antimatter stream; Icarus |
| has either been knocked out of alignment or shut off entirely. I |
| suppose I could radio ahead and ask, but there's no hurry. I'm still |
| a long way out. It will be years before I even leave the comets |
| behind.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Besides, I'm not sure I want anyone to know where I am.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <I>Charybdis</I> doesn't bother with evasive maneuvers. There'd be |
| no point even if it had the fuel to spare, even if the enemy's still |
| out there somewhere. It's not as though they don't know where Earth |
| is.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I'm pretty sure the scramblers went up along with my own kin. |
| They played well. I admit it freely. Or maybe they just got lucky. |
| An accidental hiccough tickles Bates' grunt into firing on an unarmed |
| scrambler; weeks later, Stretch & Clench use that body in the |
| course of their escape. Electricity and magnetism stir random |
| neurons in Susan's head; further down the timeline a whole new |
| persona erupts to take control, to send <I>Theseus</I> diving into |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s waiting arms. Blind stupid random chance. Maybe |
| that's all it was.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I don't think so. Too many lucky coincidences. I think |
| <I>Rorschach</I> made its own luck, planted and watered that new |
| persona right under our noses, safely hidden—but for the merest |
| trace of elevated oxytocin— behind all the lesions and tumors |
| sewn in Susan's head. I think it looked ahead and saw the uses to |
| which a decoy might be put; I think it sacrificed a little piece of |
| itself in furtherance of that end, and made it look like an accident. |
| Blind maybe, but not luck. Foresight. Brilliant moves, and subtle.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not that most of us even knew the rules of the game, of course. We |
| were just pawns, really. Sarasti and the Captain—whatever |
| hybridized intelligence those two formed—they were the <I>real</I> |
| players. Looking back, I can see a few of their moves too. I see |
| <I>Theseus</I> hearing the scramblers tap back and forth in their |
| cages; I see her tweak the volume on the Gang's feed so that Susan |
| hears it too, and thinks the discovery her own. If I squint hard |
| enough, I even glimpse <I>Theseus</I> offering us up in sacrifice, |
| deliberately provoking <I>Rorschach</I> to retaliation with that |
| final approach. Sarasti was always enamored of data, especially when |
| it had <I>tactical significance</I>. What better way to assess one's |
| enemy than to observe it in combat?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| They never told us, of course. We were happier that way. We |
| disliked orders from machines. Not that we were all that crazy about |
| taking them from a vampire.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And now the game is over, and a single pawn stands on that scorched |
| board and its face is human after all. If the scramblers follow the |
| rules that a few generations of game theorists have laid out for |
| them, they won't be back. Even if they are, I suspect it won't make |
| any difference.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Because by then, there won't be any basis for conflict.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I've been listening to the radio during these intermittent |
| awakenings. It's been generations since we buried the Broadcast Age |
| in tightbeams and fiberop, but we never completely stopped sowing EM |
| throughout the heavens. Earth, Mars, and Luna conduct their |
| interplanetary trialog in a million overlapping voices. Every ship |
| cruising the void speaks in all directions at once. The O'Neils and |
| the asteroids never stopped singing. The Fireflies might never have |
| found us if they had.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I've heard those songs changing over time, a fast-forward time-lapse |
| into oblivion. Now it's mostly traffic control and telemetry. Every |
| now and then I still hear a burst of pure voice, tight with tension, |
| just short of outright panic more often than not: some sort of |
| pursuit in progress, a ship making the plunge into deep space, other |
| ships in dispassionate pursuit. The fugitives never seem to get very |
| far before their signals are cut off.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I can't remember the last time I heard music but I hear something |
| like it sometimes, eerie and discordant, full of familiar clicks and |
| pops. My brainstem doesn't like it. It scares my brainstem to |
| death.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I remember my whole generation abandoning the real world for a |
| bootstrapped Afterlife. I remember someone saying <I>Vampires don't |
| go to Heaven</I>. They see the pixels. Sometimes I wonder how I'd |
| feel, brought back from the peace of the grave to toil at the |
| pleasure of simpleminded creatures who had once been no more than |
| protein. I wonder how I'd feel if my disability had been used to |
| keep me leashed and denied my rightful place in the world.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| And then I wonder what it would be like to feel nothing at all, to be |
| an utterly rational, predatory creature with meat putting itself so |
| eagerly to sleep on all sides...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0; text-align: center"> |
| *</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I can't miss Jukka Sarasti. God knows I try, every time I come |
| online. He saved my life. He — humanized me. I'll always owe |
| him for that, for however long I live; and for however long I live |
| I'll never stop hating him for the same reason. In some sick |
| surrealistic way I had more in common with Sarasti than I did with |
| any human.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| But I just don't have it in me. He was a predator and I was prey, |
| and it's not in the nature of the lamb to mourn the lion. Though he |
| died for our sins, I cannot miss Jukka Sarasti.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I can empathize with him, though. At long long last I can empathise, |
| with Sarasti, with all his extinct kind. Because we humans were |
| never meant to inherit the Earth. Vampires were. They must have |
| been sentient to some degree, but that semi-aware dream state would |
| have been a rudimentary thing next to our own self-obsession. They |
| were weeding it out. It was just a phase. They were on their way.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| The thing is, humans can look at crosses without going into |
| convulsions. That's evolution for you; one stupid linked mutation |
| and the whole natural order falls apart, intelligence and |
| self-awareness stuck in counterproductive lock-step for half a |
| million years. I think I know what's happening back on Earth, and |
| though some might call it genocide it isn't really. We did it to |
| ourselves. You can't blame predators for being predators. We were |
| the ones who brought them back, after all. Why <I>wouldn't</I> they |
| reclaim their birthright?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| Not genocide. Just the righting of an ancient wrong.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| I've tried to take some comfort in that. It's—difficult. |
| Sometimes it seems as though my whole life's been a struggle to |
| reconnect, to regain whatever got lost when my parents killed their |
| only child. Out in the Oort, I finally won that struggle. Thanks to |
| a vampire and a boatload of freaks and an invading alien horde, I'm |
| Human again. Maybe the last Human. By the time I get home, I could |
| be the only sentient being in the universe.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| If I'm even that much. Because I don't know if there is such a thing |
| as a reliable narrator. And Cunningham said zombies would be pretty |
| good at faking it.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| So I can't really tell you, one way or the other.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0"> |
| You'll just have to imagine you're Siri Keeton.</P> |
|
|
| <br><br><br><a name="Acknowledgments"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a><br><br><br> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; line-height: 100%; page-break-before: always"> |
| Acknowledgments</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <I>Blindsight</I> is my first novel-length foray into deep space—a |
| domain in which I have, shall we say, limited formal education. In |
| that sense this book isn't far removed from my earlier novels: but |
| whereas I may have not known much about deep sea ecology either, most |
| of you knew even less, and a doctorate in marine biology at least let |
| me fake it through the rifters trilogy. <I>Blindsight</I>, however, |
| charts its course through a whole different kind of zero gee; this |
| made a trustworthy guide that much more important. So first let me |
| thank Prof. Jaymie Matthews of the University of British Columbia: |
| astronomer, partygoer, and vital serial sieve for all the ideas I |
| threw at him. Let me also thank Donald Simmons, aerospace engineer |
| and gratifyingly-cheap dinner date, who reviewed my specs for <I>Theseus</I> |
| (especially of the drive and the Drum), and gave me tips on radiation |
| and the shielding therefrom. Both parties patiently filtered out my |
| more egregious boners. (Which is not to say that none remain in this |
| book, only that those which do result from my negligence, not theirs. |
| Or maybe just because the story called for them.) |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| David Hartwell, as always, was my editor and main point man at Evil |
| Empire HQ. I suspect <I>Blindsight </I>was a tough haul for both of |
| us: shitloads of essential theory threatened to overwhelm the story, |
| not to mention the problem of generating reader investment in a cast |
| of characters who were less cuddlesome than usual. I still don't |
| know the extent to which I succeeded or failed, but I've never been |
| more grateful that the man riding shotgun had warmed up on everyone |
| from Heinlein to Herbert.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The usual gang of fellow writers critiqued the first few chapters of |
| this book and sent me whimpering back to the drawing board: Michael |
| Carr, Laurie Channer, Cory Doctorow, Rebecca Maines, David Nickle, |
| John McDaid, Steve Samenski, Rob Stauffer and the late Pat York. All |
| offered valuable insights and criticisms at our annual island |
| getaway; Dave Nickle gets singled out for special mention thanks to |
| additional insights offered throughout the year, generally at ungodly |
| hours. By the same token, Dave is exempted from the familiar |
| any-errors-are-entirely-mine schtick that we authors boilerplate onto |
| our Acknowledgements. At least some of the mistakes contained herein |
| are probably Dave's fault.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Profs. Dan Brooks and Deborah MacLennan, both of the University of |
| Toronto, provided the intellectual stimulation of an academic |
| environment without any of the political and bureaucratic bullshit |
| that usually goes along with it. I am indebted to them for litres of |
| alcohol and hours of discussion on a number of the issues presented |
| herein, and for other things that are none of your fucking business. |
| Also in the too-diverse-to-itemise category, André Breault |
| provided a west-coast refuge in which I completed the first draft. |
| Isaac Szpindel—the <I>real</I> one­— helped out, as |
| usual, with various neurophys details, and Susan James (who also |
| really exists, albeit in a slightly more coherent format) told me how |
| linguists might approach a First Contact scenario. Lisa Beaton |
| pointed me to relevant papers in a forlorn attempt to atone for |
| whoring her soul to Big Pharma. Laurie Channer acted as general |
| sounding board, and, well, put up with me. For a while, anyway. |
| Thanks also to Karl Schroeder, with whom I batted around a number of |
| ideas in the arena of sentience-vs.-intelligence. Parts of |
| <I>Blindsight</I> can be thought of as a rejoinder to arguments |
| presented in Karl's novel <I>Permanence</I>; I disagree with his |
| reasoning at almost every step, and am still trying to figure out how |
| we arrived at the same general endpoint.</P> |
|
|
| <br><br><br><a name="Notes"><hr width="100%" color="#00000"></a><br><br><br> |
|
|
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:right; line-height: 100%"> |
| Notes and References</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| References and remarks, to try and convince you all I'm not crazy |
| (or, failing that, to simply intimidate you into shutting up about |
| it). Read for extra credit.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%"> |
| <B>A Brief Primer on Vampire Biology</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| I'm hardly the first author to take a stab at rationalising vampirism |
| in purely biological terms. Richard Matheson did it before I was |
| born, and if the grapevine's right that damn Butler woman's latest |
| novel will be all over the same territory before you even read this. |
| I bet I'm the first to come up with the Crucifix Glitch to explain |
| the aversion to crosses, though— and once struck by that bit of |
| inspiration, everything else followed.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Vampires were accidentally rediscovered when a form of experimental |
| gene therapy went curiously awry, kick-starting long-dormant genes in |
| an autistic child and provoking a series of (ultimately fatal) |
| physical and neurological changes. The company responsible for this |
| discovery presented its findings after extensive follow-up studies on |
| inmates of the Texas penal system; a recording of that talk, complete |
| with visual aids, is available online<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote1anc" HREF="#sdfootnote1sym"><SUP>1</SUP></A></SUP>; |
| curious readers with half an hour to kill are refered there for |
| details not only on vampire biology, but on the research, funding, |
| and "ethical and political concerns" regarding vampire |
| domestication (not to mention the ill-fated "Taming Yesterday's |
| Nightmares For A Brighter Tomorrow" campaign). The following |
| (much briefer) synopsis restricts itself to a few biological |
| characteristics of the ancestral organism:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <I>Homo sapiens vampiris</I> was a short-lived Human subspecies which |
| diverged from the ancestral line between 800,000 and 500,000 year BP. |
| More gracile than either <I>neandertal</I> or <I>sapiens</I>, gross |
| physical divergence from <I>sapiens</I> included slight elongation of |
| canines, mandibles, and long bones in service of an increasingly |
| predatory lifestyle. Due to the relatively brief lifespan of this |
| lineage, these changes were not extensive and overlapped considerably |
| with conspecific allometries; differences become diagnostically |
| significant only at large sample sizes (N>130).</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF4"></A><A NAME="_Ref110222656"></A> |
| However, while virtually identical to modern humans in terms of gross |
| physical morphology, <I>vampiris</I> was radically divergent from |
| <I>sapiens</I> on the biochemical, neurological, and soft-tissue |
| levels. The GI tract was foreshortened and secreted a distinct range |
| of enzymes more suited to a carnivorous diet. Since cannibalism |
| carries with it a high risk of prionic infection<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote2anc" HREF="#sdfootnote2sym"><SUP>2</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| the vampire immune system displayed great resistance to prion |
| diseases<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote3anc" HREF="#sdfootnote3sym"><SUP>3</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| as well as to a variety of helminth and anasakid parasites. <I>Vampiris</I> |
| hearing and vision were superior to that of <I>sapiens</I>; vampire |
| retinas were quadrochromatic (containing four types of cones, |
| compared to only three among baseline humans); the fourth cone type, |
| common to nocturnal predators ranging from cats to snakes, was tuned |
| to near-infrared. Vampire grey matter was "underconnected" |
| compared to Human norms due to a relative lack of interstitial white |
| matter; this forced isolated cortical modules to become |
| self-contained and hypereffective, leading to omnisavantic |
| pattern-matching and analytical skills<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote4anc" HREF="#sdfootnote4sym"><SUP>4</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Virtually all of these adaptations are cascade effects that— |
| while resulting from a variety of proximate causes— can |
| ultimately be traced back to a paracentric inversion mutation on the |
| Xq21.3 block of the X-chromosome<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote5anc" HREF="#sdfootnote5sym"><SUP>5</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| This resulted in functional changes to genes coding for |
| protocadherins (proteins that play a critical role in brain and |
| central nervous system development). While this provoked radical |
| neurological and behavioral changes, significant <I>physical </I>changes |
| were limited to soft tissue and microstructures that do not |
| fossilise. This, coupled with extremely low numbers of vampire even |
| at peak population levels (existing as they did at the tip of the |
| trophic pyramid) explains their virtual absence from the fossil |
| record.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Significant deleterious effects also resulted from this cascade. For |
| example, vampires lost the ability to code for <FONT FACE="Symbol, serif"></FONT>-Protocadherin |
| Y, whose genes are found exclusively on the hominid Y chromosome<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote6anc" HREF="#sdfootnote6sym"><SUP>6</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Unable to synthesise this vital protein themselves, vampires had to |
| obtain it from their food. Human prey thus comprised an essential |
| component of their diet, but a relatively slow-breeding one (a unique |
| situation, since prey usually outproduce their predators by at least |
| an order of magnitude). Normally this dynamic would be utterly |
| unsustainable: vampires would predate humans to extinction, and then |
| die off themselves for lack of essential nutrients.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Extended periods of lungfish-like dormancy<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote7anc" HREF="#sdfootnote7sym"><SUP>7</SUP></A></SUP> |
| (the so-called "undead" state)—and the consequent |
| drastic reduction in vampire energetic needs— developed as a |
| means of redressing this imbalance. To this end vampires produced |
| elevated levels of endogenous Ala-(D) Leuenkephalin (a mammalian |
| hibernation-inducing peptide<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote8anc" HREF="#sdfootnote8sym"><SUP>8</SUP></A></SUP>) |
| and dobutamine, which strengthens the heart muscle during periods on |
| inactivity<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote9anc" HREF="#sdfootnote9sym"><SUP>9</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Another deleterious cascade effect was the so-called "Crucifix |
| Glitch"— a cross-wiring of normally-distinct receptor |
| arrays in the visual cortex<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote10anc" HREF="#sdfootnote10sym"><SUP>10</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| resulting in <I>grand mal</I>-like feedback siezures whenever the |
| arrays processing vertical and horizontal stimuli fired |
| simultaneously across a sufficiently large arc of the visual field. |
| Since intersecting right angles are virtually nonexistent in nature, |
| natural selection did not weed out the Glitch until <I>H. sapiens |
| sapiens</I> developed Euclidean architecture; by then, the trait had |
| become fixed across <I>H. sapiens vampiris</I> via genetic drift, |
| and—suddenly denied access to its prey—the entire |
| subspecies went extinct shortly after the dawn of recorded history.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| You'll have noticed that Jukka Sarasti, like all reconstructed |
| vampires, sometimes <I>clicked</I> to himself when thinking. This is |
| thought to hail from an ancestral language, which was hardwired into |
| a click-speech mode more than 50,000 years BP. Click-based speech is |
| especially suited to predators stalking prey on savannah grasslands |
| (the clicks mimic the rustling of grasses, allowing communication |
| without spooking quarry)<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote11anc" HREF="#sdfootnote11sym"><SUP>11</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| The Human language most closely akin to Old Vampire is Hadzane<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote12anc" HREF="#sdfootnote12sym"><SUP>12</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <B>Sleight of Mind</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The Human sensorium is remarkably easy to hack; our visual system has |
| been described as an improvised "bag of tricks"<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote13anc" HREF="#sdfootnote13sym"><SUP>13</SUP></A></SUP> |
| at best. Our sense organs acquire such fragmentary, imperfect input |
| that the brain has to interpret their data using rules of probability |
| rather than direct perception<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote14anc" HREF="#sdfootnote14sym"><SUP>14</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| It doesn't so much <I>see</I> the world as make an educated guess |
| about it. As a result, "improbable" stimuli tends to go |
| unprocessed at the conscious level, no matter how strong the input. |
| We tend to simply <I>ignore</I> sights and sound that don't fit with |
| our worldview.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Sarasti was right: <I>Rorschach</I> wouldn't do anything to you that |
| you don't already do to yourself.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| For example, the invisibility trick of that young, dumb scrambler— |
| the one who restricted its movement to the gaps in Human vision— |
| occured to me while reading about something called <I>inattentional |
| blindness</I>. A Russian guy called Yarbus was the first to figure |
| out the whole saccadal glitch in Human vision, back in the nineteen |
| sixties<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote15anc" HREF="#sdfootnote15sym"><SUP>15</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Since then, a variety of researchers have made objects pop in and |
| out of the visual field unnoticed, conducted conversations with |
| hapless subjects who never realised that their conversational partner |
| had changed halfway through the interview, and generally proven that |
| the Human brain just <I>fails to notice</I> an awful lot of what's |
| going on around it<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote16anc" HREF="#sdfootnote16sym"><SUP>16</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote17anc" HREF="#sdfootnote17sym"><SUP>17</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote18anc" HREF="#sdfootnote18sym"><SUP>18</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Check out the demos at the website of the Visual Cognition Lab at |
| the University of Illinois<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote19anc" HREF="#sdfootnote19sym"><SUP>19</SUP></A></SUP> |
| and you'll see what I mean. This really is rather mind-blowing, |
| people. There could be Scientologists walking among us right now and |
| if they moved just right, we'd <I>never even see them</I>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF20"></A><A NAME="_Ref110001202"></A><A NAME="_RefF21"></A><A NAME="_Ref110001232"></A><A NAME="_RefF22"></A><A NAME="_Ref110001245"></A> |
| Most of the psychoses, syndromes, and hallucinations described herein |
| are real, and are described in detail by Metzinger<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote20anc" HREF="#sdfootnote20sym"><SUP>20</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| Wegner<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote21anc" HREF="#sdfootnote21sym"><SUP>21</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| and/or Saks<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote22anc" HREF="#sdfootnote22sym"><SUP>22</SUP></A></SUP> |
| (see also <I>Sentience/Intelligence, </I>below<I>)</I>. Others (<I>e.g.</I> |
| Grey Syndrome) have not yet made their way into the DSM<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote23anc" HREF="#sdfootnote23sym"><SUP>23</SUP></A></SUP>—truth |
| be told, I invented a couple— but are nonetheless based on |
| actual experimental evidence. Depending upon whom you believe, the |
| judicious application of magnetic fields to the brain can provoke |
| everything from religious rapture<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote24anc" HREF="#sdfootnote24sym"><SUP>24</SUP></A></SUP> |
| to a sense of being abducted by aliens<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote25anc" HREF="#sdfootnote25sym"><SUP>25</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Transcranial magnetic stimulation can change mood, induce |
| blindness<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote26anc" HREF="#sdfootnote26sym"><SUP>26</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| or target the speech centers (making one unable to pronounce verbs, |
| for example, while leaving the nouns unimpaired)<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote27anc" HREF="#sdfootnote27sym"><SUP>27</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Memory and learning can be enhanced (or impaired), and the US |
| Government is presently funding research into wearable TMS gear |
| for—you guessed it— military purposes<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote28anc" HREF="#sdfootnote28sym"><SUP>28</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Sometimes electrical stimulation of the brain induces "alien |
| hand syndrome"— the involuntary movement of the body |
| against the will of the "person" allegedly in control<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote29anc" HREF="#sdfootnote29sym"><SUP>29</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Other times it provokes equally involuntary movements, which |
| subjects nonetheless insist they "chose" to perform despite |
| overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote30anc" HREF="#sdfootnote30sym"><SUP>30</SUP></A></SUP><I>. |
| </I>Put all this together with the fact that the body begins to act |
| before the brain even "decides" to move<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote31anc" HREF="#sdfootnote31sym"><SUP>31</SUP></A></SUP> |
| (but see<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote32anc" HREF="#sdfootnote32sym"><SUP>32</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote33anc" HREF="#sdfootnote33sym"><SUP>33</SUP></A></SUP>), |
| and the whole concept of <I>free will</I>—despite the |
| undeniable subjective <I>feeling</I> that it's real—begins to |
| look a teeny bit silly, even outside the influence of alien |
| artefacts.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| While electromagnetic stimulation is currently the most trendy |
| approach to hacking the brain, it's hardly the only one. Gross |
| physical disturbances ranging from tumors<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote34anc" HREF="#sdfootnote34sym"><SUP>34</SUP></A></SUP> |
| to tamping irons<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote35anc" HREF="#sdfootnote35sym"><SUP>35</SUP></A></SUP> |
| can turn normal people into psychopaths and pedophiles (hence that |
| new persona sprouting in Susan James's head). Spirit possession and |
| rapture can be induced through the sheer emotional bump-and-grind of |
| religious rituals, using no invasive neurological tools at all (and |
| not even necessarily any pharmacological ones)<SUP>21</SUP>. People |
| can even develop a sense of ownership of body parts that aren't |
| theirs, can be convinced that a rubber hand is their real one<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote36anc" HREF="#sdfootnote36sym"><SUP>36</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Vision trumps propioreception: a prop limb, subtly manipulated, is |
| enough to convince us that we're doing one thing while in fact we're |
| doing something else entirely<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote37anc" HREF="#sdfootnote37sym"><SUP>37</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote38anc" HREF="#sdfootnote38sym"><SUP>38</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The latest tool in this arsenal is ultrasound: less invasive than |
| electromagnetics, more precise than charismatic revival, it can be |
| used to boot up brain activity<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote39anc" HREF="#sdfootnote39sym"><SUP>39</SUP></A></SUP> |
| without any of those pesky electrodes or magnetic hairnets. In |
| <I>Blindsight</I> it serves as a convenient back door to explain why |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s hallucinations persist even in the presence of |
| Faraday shielding— but in the here and now, Sony has been |
| renewing an annual patent for a machine which uses ultrasonics to |
| implant "sensory experiences" directly into the brain<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote40anc" HREF="#sdfootnote40sym"><SUP>40</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| They're calling it an entertainment device with massive applications |
| for online gaming. Uh huh. And if you can implant sights and sounds |
| into someone's head from a distance, why not implant political |
| beliefs and the irresistable desire for a certain brand of beer while |
| you're at it?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <B>Are We There Yet?</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The "telematter" drive that gets our characters to the |
| story is based on teleportation studies reported in <I>Nature</I><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote41anc" HREF="#sdfootnote41sym"><SUP>41</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| <I>Science,</I><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote42anc" HREF="#sdfootnote42sym"><SUP>42</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>,</SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote43anc" HREF="#sdfootnote43sym"><SUP>43</SUP></A></SUP> |
| <I>Physical Review Letters</I><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote44anc" HREF="#sdfootnote44sym"><SUP>44</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| and (more recently) everyone and their dog<SUP>e.g., </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote45anc" HREF="#sdfootnote45sym"><SUP>45</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| The idea of transmitting antimatter specs as a fuel template is, so |
| far as I know, all mine. To derive plausible guesses for <I>Theseus</I>'s |
| fuel mass, accelleration, and travel time I resorted to The |
| Relativistic Rocket<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote46anc" HREF="#sdfootnote46sym"><SUP>46</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| maintained by the mathematical physicist John Baez at UC Riverside. |
| <I>Theseus</I>' use of magnetic fields as radiation shielding is |
| based on research out of MIT<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote47anc" HREF="#sdfootnote47sym"><SUP>47</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| I parked the (solar powered) Icarus Array right next to the sun |
| because the production of antimatter is likely to remain an extremely |
| energy-expensive process for the near future<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote48anc" HREF="#sdfootnote48sym"><SUP>48</SUP></A>, |
| <A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote49anc" HREF="#sdfootnote49sym"><SUP>49</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The undead state in which <I>Theseus </I>carries her crew is, of |
| course, another iteration of the venerable suspended animation riff |
| (although I'd like to think I've broken new ground by invoking |
| vampire physiology as the mechanism). Two recent studies have put |
| the prospect of induced hibernation closer to realization. |
| Blackstone <I>et al</I>. have induced hibernation in mice by the |
| astonishingly-simple expedient of exposing them to hydrogen sulfide<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote50anc" HREF="#sdfootnote50sym"><SUP>50</SUP></A></SUP>; |
| this gums up their cellular machinery enough to reduce metabolism by |
| 90%. More dramatically (and invasively), researchers at Safar Center |
| for Resuscitation Research in Pittsburgh claim<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote51anc" HREF="#sdfootnote51sym"><SUP>51</SUP></A></SUP> |
| to have resurrected a dog three hours after clinical death, via a |
| technique in which the animal's blood supply was replaced by an |
| ice-cold saline solution<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote52anc" HREF="#sdfootnote52sym"><SUP>52</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Of these techniques, the first is probably closer to what I |
| envisioned, although I'd finished the first draft before either |
| headline broke. I considered rejigging my crypt scenes to include |
| mention of hydrogen sulfide, but ultimately decided that fart jokes |
| would have ruined the mood.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-before: always"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%"> |
| <B>The Game Board</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <I>Blindsight</I> describes Big Ben as an "Oasa Emitter". |
| Officially there's no such label, but Yumiko Oasa has reported |
| finding hitherto-undocumented infrared emitters<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote53anc" HREF="#sdfootnote53sym"><SUP>53</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote54anc" HREF="#sdfootnote54sym"><SUP>54</SUP></A></SUP> |
| — dimmer than brown dwarves, but possibly more common<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote55anc" HREF="#sdfootnote55sym"><SUP>55</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>,</SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote56anc" HREF="#sdfootnote56sym"><SUP>56</SUP></A></SUP>— |
| ranging in mass from three to thirteen Jovian masses. My story |
| needed something relatively local, large enough to sustain a |
| superJovian magnetic field, but small and dim enough to plausibly |
| avoid discovery for the next seventy or eighty years. Oasa's |
| emitters suit my needs reasonably well (notwithstanding some evident |
| skepticism over whether they actually exist<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote57anc" HREF="#sdfootnote57sym"><SUP>57</SUP></A></SUP>).</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Of course I had to extrapolate on the details, given how little is |
| actually known about these beasts. To this end I pilfered data from |
| a variety of sources on gas giants<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote58anc" HREF="#sdfootnote58sym"><SUP>58</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote59anc" HREF="#sdfootnote59sym"><SUP>59</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote60anc" HREF="#sdfootnote60sym"><SUP>60</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote61anc" HREF="#sdfootnote61sym"><SUP>61</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote62anc" HREF="#sdfootnote62sym"><SUP>62</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote63anc" HREF="#sdfootnote63sym"><SUP>63</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote64anc" HREF="#sdfootnote64sym"><SUP>64</SUP></A></SUP> |
| and/or brown dwarves<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote65anc" HREF="#sdfootnote65sym"><SUP>65</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote66anc" HREF="#sdfootnote66sym"><SUP>66</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote67anc" HREF="#sdfootnote67sym"><SUP>67</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote68anc" HREF="#sdfootnote68sym"><SUP>68</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote69anc" HREF="#sdfootnote69sym"><SUP>69</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote70anc" HREF="#sdfootnote70sym"><SUP>70</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote71anc" HREF="#sdfootnote71sym"><SUP>71</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote72anc" HREF="#sdfootnote72sym"><SUP>72</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| , </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote73anc" HREF="#sdfootnote73sym"><SUP>73</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote74anc" HREF="#sdfootnote74sym"><SUP>74</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote75anc" HREF="#sdfootnote75sym"><SUP>75</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| scaling up or down as appropriate. From a distance, the firing of |
| <I>Rorschach</I>'s ultimate weapon looks an awful lot like the |
| supermassive x-ray and radio flare recently seen erupting from a |
| brown dwarf that should have been way too small to pull off such a |
| trick<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote76anc" HREF="#sdfootnote76sym"><SUP>76</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| That flare lasted twelve hours, was a good billions times as strong |
| as anything Jupiter ever put out, and is thought to have resulted |
| from a twisted magnetic field<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote77anc" HREF="#sdfootnote77sym"><SUP>77</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Burns-Caulfield is based loosely on 2000 Cr<SUB>105</SUB>, a |
| trans-Newtonian comet whose present orbit cannot be completely |
| explained by the gravitational forces of presently-known objects in |
| the solar system<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote78anc" HREF="#sdfootnote78sym"><SUP>78</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <B>Scrambler Anatomy and Physiology</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Like many others, I am weary of humanoid aliens with bumpy foreheads, |
| and of giant CGI insectoids that may <I>look</I> alien but who act |
| like rabid dogs in chitin suits. Of course, difference for its own |
| arbitrary sake is scarcely better than your average saggital-crested |
| Roddennoid; natural selection is as ubiquitous as life itself, and |
| the same basic processes will end up shaping life wherever it |
| evolves. The challenge is thus to create an "alien" that |
| truly lives up to the word, while remaining biologically plausible.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Scramblers are my first shot at meeting that challenge— and |
| given how much they resemble the brittle stars found in earthly seas, |
| I may have crapped out on the whole unlike-anything-you've-ever-seen |
| front, at least in terms of gross morphology. It turns out that |
| brittle stars even have something akin to the scrambler's distributed |
| eyespot array. Similarly, scrambler reproduction— the budding |
| of stacked newborns off a common stalk— takes its lead from |
| jellyfish. You can take the marine biologist out of the ocean, |
| but...</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF81"></A><A NAME="_Ref109734132"></A> |
| Fortunately, scramblers become more alien the closer you look at |
| them. Cunningham remarks that nothing like their time-sharing |
| motor/sensory pathways exists on Earth. He's right as far as he |
| goes, but I can cite a precursor that might conceivably evolve into |
| such an arrangement. Our own "mirror neurons" fire not |
| only when we perform an action, but when we observe someone else |
| performing the same action<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote79anc" HREF="#sdfootnote79sym"><SUP>79</SUP></A></SUP>; |
| this characteristic has been cited in the evolution of both language |
| and of consciousness<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote80anc" HREF="#sdfootnote80sym"><SUP>80</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote81anc" HREF="#sdfootnote81sym"><SUP>81</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote82anc" HREF="#sdfootnote82sym"><SUP>82</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Things look even more alien on the metabolic level. Here on Earth |
| anything that relied solely on anaerobic ATP production never got |
| past the single-cell stage. Even though it's more efficient than our |
| own oxygen-burning pathways, anaerobic metabolism is just too damn |
| <I>slow</I> for advanced multicellularity<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote83anc" HREF="#sdfootnote83sym"><SUP>83</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Cunningham's proposed solution is simplicity itself. The catch is, |
| you have to sleep for a few thousand years between shifts.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The idea of quantum-mechanical metabolic processes may sound even |
| wonkier, but it's not. Wave-particle duality can exert significant |
| impacts on biochemical reactions under physiological conditions at |
| room temperature<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote84anc" HREF="#sdfootnote84sym"><SUP>84</SUP></A></SUP>; |
| heavy-atom carbon tunnelling has been reported to speed up the rate |
| of such reactions by as much as 152 <I>orders of magnitude</I><SUP><I><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote85anc" HREF="#sdfootnote85sym"><SUP>85</SUP></A></I></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| And how's <I>this</I> for alien: <I>no genes</I>. The honeycomb |
| example I used by way of analogy originally appeared in Darwin's |
| little-known treatise<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote86anc" HREF="#sdfootnote86sym"><SUP>86</SUP></A></SUP><I> |
| </I>(<I>damn</I> but I've always wanted to cite that guy); more |
| recently, a small but growing group of biologists have begun |
| spreading the word that nucleic acids (in particular) and genes (in |
| general) have been seriously overrated as prerequisites to life<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote87anc" HREF="#sdfootnote87sym"><SUP>87</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote88anc" HREF="#sdfootnote88sym"><SUP>88</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| A great deal of biological complexity arises not because of genetic |
| programming, but through the sheer physical and chemical interaction |
| of its components<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote89anc" HREF="#sdfootnote89sym"><SUP>89</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>,</SUP> |
| <SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote90anc" HREF="#sdfootnote90sym"><SUP>90</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>,</SUP> |
| <SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote91anc" HREF="#sdfootnote91sym"><SUP>91</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>,</SUP> |
| <SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote92anc" HREF="#sdfootnote92sym"><SUP>92</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Of course, you still need something to set up the initial conditions |
| for those processes to emerge; that's where the magnetic fields come |
| in. No candy-ass string of nucleotides would survive in <I>Rorschach</I>'s |
| environment anyway. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The curious nitpicker might be saying "Yeah, but without genes |
| how do these guys <I>evolve</I>? How to they adapt to novel |
| environments? How, as a species, do they cope with the <I>unexpected</I>?" |
| And if Robert Cunningham were here today, he might say, "I'd |
| swear half the immune system is actively targetting the other half. |
| It's not just the immune system, either. Parts of the nervous system |
| seem to be trying to, well, hack each other. I think they evolve |
| <I>intraorganismally</I>, as insane as that sounds. The whole |
| organism's at war with itself on the tissue level, it's got some kind |
| of cellular Red Queen thing happening. Like setting up a colony of |
| interacting tumors, and counting on fierce competition to keep any |
| one of them from getting out of hand. Seems to serve the same role |
| as sex and mutation does for us." And if you rolled your eyes at |
| all that doubletalk, he might just blow smoke in your face and refer |
| to one immunologist's interpretation of exactly those concepts, as |
| exemplified in (of all things) <I>The Matrix Revolutions</I><SUP><I><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote93anc" HREF="#sdfootnote93sym"><SUP>93</SUP></A></I></SUP> |
| . He might also point out that that the synaptic connections of your |
| own brain are shaped by a similar kind of intraorganismal natural |
| selection<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote94anc" HREF="#sdfootnote94sym"><SUP>94</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| one catalysed by bits of parasitic DNA called <I>retrotransposons.</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Cunningham actually did say something like that in an earlier draft |
| of this book, but the damn thing was getting so weighed down with |
| theorising that I just cut it. After all, <I>Rorschach</I> is the |
| proximate architect of these things, so it could handle all that |
| stuff even if individual scramblers couldn't. And one of |
| <I>Blindsight</I>'s take-home messages is that life is a matter of |
| <I>degree</I>—the distinction between living and non-living |
| systems has always been an iffy one<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote95anc" HREF="#sdfootnote95sym"><SUP>95</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote96anc" HREF="#sdfootnote96sym"><SUP>96</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote97anc" HREF="#sdfootnote97sym"><SUP>97</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| never more so than in the bowels of that pain-in-the-ass artefact out |
| in the Oort.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"><A NAME="here"></A> |
| <B>Sentience/Intelligence</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%; page-break-after: avoid"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF98"></A><A NAME="_Ref109735557"></A> |
| This is the heart of the whole damn exercise. Let's get the biggies |
| out of the way first. Metzinger's <I>Being No One<SUP>20</SUP></I> |
| is the toughest book I've ever read (and there are still significant |
| chunks of it I haven't), but it also contains some of the most |
| mindblowing ideas I've encountered in fact or fiction. Most authors |
| are shameless bait-and-switchers when it comes to the nature of |
| consciousness. Pinker calls his book <I>How the Mind Works</I><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote98anc" HREF="#sdfootnote98sym"><SUP>98</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| then admits on page one that "We don't understand how the mind |
| works". Koch (the guy who coined the term "zombie agents") |
| writes <I>The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach</I><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote99anc" HREF="#sdfootnote99sym"><SUP>99</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| in which he sheepishly sidesteps the whole issue of why neural |
| activity should result in any kind of subjective awareness |
| whatsoever.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Towering above such pussies, Metzinger takes the bull by the balls. |
| His "World-zero" hypothesis not only explains the |
| subjective sense of self, but also why such an illusory first-person |
| narrator would be an emergent property of certain cognitive systems |
| in the first place. I have no idea whether he's right— the |
| man's way beyond me— but at least he addressed the <I>real</I> |
| question that keeps us staring at the ceiling at three a.m., long |
| after the last roach is spent. Many of the syndromes and maladies |
| dropped into <I>Blindsight </I>I first encountered in Metzinger's |
| book. Any uncited claims or statements in this subsection probably |
| hail from that source.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| If they don't, then maybe they hail from Wegner's <I>The Illusion of |
| Conscious Will<SUP>21</SUP></I> instead. Less ambitious, far more |
| accessible, Wegner's book doesn't so much deal with the nature of |
| <I>consciousness</I> as it does with the nature of <I>free will</I>, |
| which Wegner thumbnails as "our mind's way of estimating what it |
| thinks it did.". Wegner presents his own list of syndromes and |
| maladies, all of which reinforce the mind-boggling sense of what |
| fragile and subvertible machines we are. And of course, Oliver |
| Saks<SUP>22</SUP> was sending us memos from the edge of consciousness |
| long before consciousness even had a bandwagon to jump on.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF107"></A><A NAME="_Ref109717417"></A> |
| It might be easier to list the people who <I>haven't</I> taken a stab |
| at "explaining" consciousness. Theories run the gamut from |
| diffuse electrical fields to quantum puppet-shows; consciousness has |
| been "located" in the frontoinsular cortex and the |
| hypothalamus and a hundred dynamic cores in between<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote100anc" HREF="#sdfootnote100sym"><SUP>100</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote101anc" HREF="#sdfootnote101sym"><SUP>101</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote102anc" HREF="#sdfootnote102sym"><SUP>102</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote103anc" HREF="#sdfootnote103sym"><SUP>103</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote104anc" HREF="#sdfootnote104sym"><SUP>104</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote105anc" HREF="#sdfootnote105sym"><SUP>105</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote106anc" HREF="#sdfootnote106sym"><SUP>106</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote107anc" HREF="#sdfootnote107sym"><SUP>107</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote108anc" HREF="#sdfootnote108sym"><SUP>108</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote109anc" HREF="#sdfootnote109sym"><SUP>109</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote110anc" HREF="#sdfootnote110sym"><SUP>110</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| (At least one theory<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote111anc" HREF="#sdfootnote111sym"><SUP>111</SUP></A></SUP> |
| suggests that while great apes and adult Humans are sentient, young |
| Human children are not. I admit to a certain fondness for this |
| conclusion; if childen <I>aren't</I> nonsentient, they're certainly |
| psychopathic).</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"><A NAME="_RefF112"></A><A NAME="_Ref109730028"></A> |
| But beneath the unthreatening, superficial question of what |
| consciousness <I>is</I> floats the more functional question of what |
| it's good for. <I>Blindsight </I>plays with that issue at length, |
| and I won't reiterate points already made. Suffice to say that, at |
| least under routine conditions, consciousness does little beyond |
| taking memos from the vastly richer subconcious environment, |
| rubber-stamping them, and taking the credit for itself. In fact, the |
| nonconscious mind usually works so well on its own that it actually |
| employs a gatekeeper in the anterious cingulate cortex to do nothing |
| but <I>prevent</I> the conscious self from interfering in daily |
| operations<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote112anc" HREF="#sdfootnote112sym"><SUP>112</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote113anc" HREF="#sdfootnote113sym"><SUP>113</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote114anc" HREF="#sdfootnote114sym"><SUP>114</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| (If the rest of your brain <I>were</I> conscious, it would probably |
| regard you as the pointy-haired boss from <I>Dilbert</I>.)</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Sentience isn't even necessary to develop a "theory of mind". |
| That might seem completely counterintuitive: how could you learn to |
| recognise that other individuals are autonomous agents, with their |
| own interests and agendas, if you weren't even aware of your own? |
| But there's no contradiction, and no call for consciousness. It is |
| entirely possible to track the intentions of others without being the |
| slightest bit self-reflective<SUP>107</SUP>. Norretranders declared |
| outright that "Consciousness is a fraud"<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote115anc" HREF="#sdfootnote115sym"><SUP>115</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Art might be a bit of an exception. Aesthetics seem to require some |
| level of self-awareness—in fact, the evolution of aethestics |
| might even be what got the whole sentience ball rolling in the first |
| place. When music is so beautiful if makes you shiver, that's the |
| reward circuitry in your limbic system kicking in: the same |
| circuitry that rewards you for fucking an attractive partner or |
| gorging on sucrose<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote116anc" HREF="#sdfootnote116sym"><SUP>116</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| It's a hack, in other words; your brain has learned how to get the |
| reward without actually earning it through increased fitness<SUP>98</SUP>. |
| It feels good, and it fulfills us, and it makes life worth living. |
| But it also turns us inward and distracts us. Those rats back in the |
| sixties, the ones that learned to stimulate their own pleasure |
| centers by pressing a lever: remember them? They pressed those |
| levers with such addictive zeal that they forgot to eat. They |
| starved to death. I've no doubt they died happy, but they <I>died</I>. |
| Without issue. Their fitness went to Zero.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Aesthetics. Sentience. Extinction.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| And that brings us to the final question, lurking way down in the |
| anoxic zone: the question of what consciousness <I>costs</I>. |
| Compared to nonconscious processing, self-awareness is slow and |
| expensive<SUP>112</SUP>. (The premise of a separate, faster entity |
| lurking at the base of our brains to take over in emergencies is |
| based on studies by, among others, Joe LeDoux of New York |
| University<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote117anc" HREF="#sdfootnote117sym"><SUP>117</SUP></A></SUP>­<SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote118anc" HREF="#sdfootnote118sym"><SUP>118</SUP></A></SUP>). |
| By way of comparison, consider the complex, lightning-fast |
| calculations of savantes; those abilities are noncognitive<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote119anc" HREF="#sdfootnote119sym"><SUP>119</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| and there is evidence that they owe their superfunctionality not to |
| any overarching integration of mental processes but due to relative |
| neurological <I>fragmentation<SUP>4</SUP></I>. Even if sentient and |
| nonsentient processes were equally efficient, the conscious awareness |
| of visceral stimuli—by its very nature— distracts the |
| individual from other threats and opportunities in its environment. |
| (I was quite proud of myself for that insight. You'll understand |
| how peeved I was to discover that Wegner had already made a similar |
| point back in 1994<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote120anc" HREF="#sdfootnote120sym"><SUP>120</SUP></A></SUP>.) |
| The cost of high intelligence has even been demonstrated by |
| experiments in which smart fruit flies lose out to dumb ones when |
| competing for food<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote121anc" HREF="#sdfootnote121sym"><SUP>121</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| possibly because the metabolic demands of learning and memory leave |
| less energy for foraging. No, I haven't forgotten that I've just |
| spent a whole book arguing that intelligence and sentience are |
| different things. But this is still a relevant experiment, because |
| one thing both attributes do have in common is that they are |
| metabolically <I>expensive</I>. (The difference is, in at least some |
| cases intelligence is worth the price. What's the survival value of |
| obsessing on a sunset?) |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and |
| drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and |
| wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than |
| it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural |
| selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably |
| right. I hope they are. <I>Blindsight</I> is a thought experiment, |
| a game of <I>Just suppose</I> and <I>What if</I>. Nothing more.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used |
| exactly the same argument to prove their own superiority, a thousand |
| years ago: <I> if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?</I> |
| Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. |
| The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily |
| the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The |
| game is <I>never</I> over; there's no finish line this side of heat |
| death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only |
| those who haven't yet lost.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Cunningham's stats about self-recognition in primates: those too are |
| real. Chimpanzees have a higher brain-to-body ratio than |
| orangutans<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote122anc" HREF="#sdfootnote122sym"><SUP>122</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| yet orangs consistently recognise themselves in mirrors while chimps |
| do so only half the time<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote123anc" HREF="#sdfootnote123sym"><SUP>123</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Similarly, those nonhuman species with the most sophisticated |
| language skills are a variety of birds and monkeys—not the |
| presumably "more sentient" great apes who are our closest |
| relatives<SUP>81, </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote124anc" HREF="#sdfootnote124sym"><SUP>124</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| If you squint, facts like these suggest that sentience might almost |
| be a phase, something that orangutans haven't yet grown out of but |
| which their more-advanced chimpanzee cousins are beginning to. |
| (Gorillas don't self-recognise in mirrors. Perhaps they've already |
| grown out of sentience, or perhaps they never grew into it.)</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Of course, Humans don't fit this pattern. If it even is a pattern. |
| We're outliers: that's one of the points I'm making.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| I bet vampires would fit it, though. That's the other one.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| Finally, some very timely experimental support for this unpleasant |
| premise came out just as <I>Blindsight</I><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal"> |
| was being copy edited: it turns out that the unconscious mind is |
| better at making complex decisions than is the conscious mind<A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote125anc" HREF="#sdfootnote125sym"><SUP>125</SUP></A>. |
| The conscious mind just can't handle as many variables, apparently. |
| Quoth one of the researchers: “At some point in our evolution, |
| we started to make decisions consciously, and we're not very good at |
| it.”<A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote126anc" HREF="#sdfootnote126sym"><SUP>126</SUP></A></SPAN></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><b>Miscellaneous Ambience (Background |
| Details, Bad Wiring, and the Human Condition)</b></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The child Siri Keeton was not unique: we've been treating certain |
| severe epilepsies by radical hemispherectomy for over fifty years |
| now<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote127anc" HREF="#sdfootnote127sym"><SUP>127</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Surprisingly, the removal of half a brain doesn't seem to impact IQ |
| or motor skills all that much (although most of hemispherectomy |
| patients, unlike Keeton, have low IQs to begin with)<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote128anc" HREF="#sdfootnote128sym"><SUP>128</SUP></A></SUP> |
| . I'm still not entirely sure why they <I>remove</I> the hemisphere; |
| why not just split the corpus callosum, if all you're trying to do is |
| prevent a feedback loop between halves? Do they scoop out one half |
| to prevent alien hand syndrome—and if so, doesn't that imply |
| that they're knowingly destroying a sentient personality?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The maternal-response opioids that Helen Keeton used to kickstart |
| mother-love in her damaged son was inspired by recent work on |
| attachment-deficit disorders in mice<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote129anc" HREF="#sdfootnote129sym"><SUP>129</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| The iron-scavenging clouds that appear in the wake of the Firefall |
| are based on those reported by Plane <I>et al</I>.<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote130anc" HREF="#sdfootnote130sym"><SUP>130</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| I trawled The Gang of Four's linguistic jargon from a variety of |
| sources<SUP>81, </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote131anc" HREF="#sdfootnote131sym"><SUP>131</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote132anc" HREF="#sdfootnote132sym"><SUP>132</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote133anc" HREF="#sdfootnote133sym"><SUP>133</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| The multilingual speech patterns of <I>Theseus</I>' crew (described |
| but never quoted, thank God) were inspired by the musings of |
| Graddol<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote134anc" HREF="#sdfootnote134sym"><SUP>134</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| who suggests that science must remain conversant in multiple |
| grammars because language leads thought, and a single "universal" |
| scientific language would constrain the ways in which we view the |
| world.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| The antecedent of Szpindel's and Cunningham's extended phenotypes |
| exists today, in the form of one Matthew Nagel<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote135anc" HREF="#sdfootnote135sym"><SUP>135</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| The spliced prosthetics that allow them to synesthetically perceive |
| output from their lab equipment hails from the remarkable plasticity |
| of the brain's sensory cortices: you can turn an auditory cortex |
| into a visual one by simply splicing the optic nerve into the |
| auditory pathways (if you do it early enough)<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote136anc" HREF="#sdfootnote136sym"><SUP>136</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote137anc" HREF="#sdfootnote137sym"><SUP>137</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Bates' carboplatinum augments have their roots in the recent |
| development of metal musculature<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote138anc" HREF="#sdfootnote138sym"><SUP>138</SUP></A></SUP>­­<SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote139anc" HREF="#sdfootnote139sym"><SUP>139</SUP></A></SUP>. |
| Sascha's ironic denigration of TwenCen psychiatry hails not only |
| from (limited) personal experience, but from a pair of papers<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote140anc" HREF="#sdfootnote140sym"><SUP>140</SUP></A></SUP><SUP>, |
| </SUP><SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote141anc" HREF="#sdfootnote141sym"><SUP>141</SUP></A></SUP> |
| that strip away the mystique from cases of so-called <I>multiple |
| personality disorder</I>. (Not that there's anything wrong with the |
| concept; merely with its diagnosis.) The fibrodysplasia variant that |
| kills Chelsea was based on symptoms described by Kaplan <I>et al</I>.<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote142anc" HREF="#sdfootnote142sym"><SUP>142</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| And believe it or not, those screaming faces Sarasti used near the |
| end of the book represent a very real form of statistical analysis: |
| Chernoff Faces<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote143anc" HREF="#sdfootnote143sym"><SUP>143</SUP></A></SUP>, |
| which are more effective than the usual graphs and statistical tables |
| at conveying the essential characteristics of a data set<SUP><A CLASS="sdfootnoteanc" NAME="sdfootnote144anc" HREF="#sdfootnote144sym"><SUP>144</SUP></A></SUP>.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:justify; font-weight: medium; line-height: 100%"> |
| <BR> |
| </P> |
|
|
| <br><br><br><hr width="100%" color="#00000"><br><br><br> |
|
|
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="text-align:center; line-height: 100%; page-break-before: always"> |
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| |
| <br><br><br><hr width="100%" color="#00000"><br><br><br> |
|
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| http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm</P> |
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| <DIV ID="sdfootnote2"> |
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| Mead, S. <I>et al.</I> 2003. Balancing Selection at the Prion |
| Protein Gene Consistent with Prehistoric Kurulike Epidemics. |
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| Anonymous., 2004. Autism: making the connection. <I>The Economist</I>, |
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| million-mile journey in space'. News.telegraph.co.uk, 11/8/04.</P> |
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| Calvin, W.H. 1990. The Cerebral Symphony: Seashore Reflections on |
| the Structure of Consciousness. 401pp. Bantam Books, NY.</P> |
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| <P LANG="en-GB" CLASS="sdfootnote-western"><A CLASS="sdfootnotesym" NAME="sdfootnote12sym" HREF="#sdfootnote12anc">12</A> |
| Recordings of Hadzane click-based phonemes can be heard at |
| http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index.html</P> |
| </DIV> |
| <DIV ID="sdfootnote13"> |
| <P LANG="en-GB" CLASS="sdfootnote-western"><A CLASS="sdfootnotesym" NAME="sdfootnote13sym" HREF="#sdfootnote13anc">13</A> |
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| Empirical Theory of Vision. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. |
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| sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. <I>Perception</I> |
| 28: 1059-1074</P> |
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| Simons, D.J., and Rensink, R.A. 2003. Induced Failures of Visual |
| Awareness. <I> Journal of Vision</I> 3(1).</P> |
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| http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html</P> |
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| Wegner, D.M. 2002. The Illusion of Conscious Will. MIT Press, |
| Cambridge. 405pp.</P> |
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